THE WORLD'S HISTORY
THE WORLD'S HISTORY
EDITED BY
DR. H. F. HELMOLT
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE
RIGHT HON. JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.
VOLUME II
OCEANIA, EASTERN ASIA, AND THE INDIAN OCEAN
WITH PLATES AND MAPS
PREFACE TO VOLUME II
THIS Second Volume of the "World's History " (the fifth in order of
publication) will, we hope, bear witness no less eloquently than its
immediate predecessor and successor, Vols. I. and III., to the superiority
of the system of arrangement first adopted in our work. The ethno-geographical
basis on which this history is developed has been objected to, as one which offends
against the first law of historical writing — the description of events in chronological
sequence. In reply to this objection it is our right and our duty to emphasise the
fact that -in no work of the kind has the stream of narrative flowed on in snch
unbroken volume from the dimmest ages to our own times, as in the main sections
of our " World's History." This work is the first in which it has been made
possible to trace historical evolution ; for the divisions adopted have been neither
fortuitous nor arbitrary ; they have been made solely with an eye to what have
become the historical characteristics of sharply differentiated zones of population in
what was once the homogeneous human race. Thus : our first volume was
dedicated to the American branch of the genus, which has developed in the course
of centuries into a distinct species ; in our third volume we followed the destinies of
that other racial unity, the peoples of Western Asia and Africa ; and in this, we
fill up the gap dividing these two races by depicting the link that connects them,
the civilisations of Eastern Asia and Oceania in all their sub-divisions.
Three main routes would seem to have been indicated by Nature for the
passage of the Pacific Ocean from the continent of America to Eastern Asia ; in
the north, across the Behring Straits from Alaska to Eastern Siberia; in the
middle of the great waste of waters, the San Francisco- Yokohama steamer-route
to the Britain of the Pacific Ocean; and in the so.uth, that which threads the
scattered islands of Polynesia, to Australia and Indonesia. Taking into account
the meagre history of the extreme north, and the comparative modernity of the
authentic records of Xew Holland, varied as those records are, we have not
hesitated to choose the central route, and to begin the present volume with the
history of Japan, passing on to that of her neighbours, China and Korea. These
ngain were naturally followed by Upper Asia and Siberia ; while the history of the
fifth division of the earth with its dependencies, appertaining as it does almost
exclusively to the past century, seemed fittingly to come next in order. The three
main sections of the second part of the volume are devoted to the sphere of Indian
civilisation in its entirety. Hindostan and Further India, the Malay Archipelago
and the Indian Ocean form throughout their past a closely welded whole, impossible
1o disintegrate. In the concluding sections, which deal with the regions that
fringe the Indian Ocean, we are so often brought into contact with the races of
Western Asia and Africa that the approach to the threshold of the third volume
seems to be automatically indicated.
Thus all non-European or foreign regions have been treated in a manner
commensurate with their importance. In the preface to our third volume we have
already insisted on the vast importance of Oriental history, a branch of learning
hitherto strangely neglected and disparaged. In view of the rarity of authorities
to whom we can appeal for corroboration in this connection, it will not be out of
place to quote the words with which Gustav Strakosch-Grassmann prefaced his
valuable work on " The Irruption of the Mongolians into Central Europe in 1241
and 1242," published in the spring of 1893. He justly observes that ''a fuller
knowledge will only be made possible by more strenuous study of the Oriental
historical writings, in which lie buried so many precious contributions to the history
of mediaeval Europe. A systematic examination of Oriental records would yield a
harvest of new information to the student of history, in details hitherto neglected,
bearing upon the relations between Oriental and European nations."
This indeed has been the object we have kept in view above all others in our
undertaking. In his introduction to Vol. I. of " The World's History," the present
writer promised that the work should not offer a mere series of monographs 011
various nations, but that it should also construct the bridges connecting one
building with another. A task so onerous was, of course, only possible to him,
because his collaborators, who for the most part have written their contributions
quite independently one of another, agreed to give him a free hand in his editorial
labours, allowing him to make upon occasion radical alterations and modifications,
and, above all, to establish the clearest possible connection between the various
sections of the book. It is not in empty compliment that the whole work appears
under the name of the editor. He recognises in this not merely a scarcely
deserved honour, but an obligation laid upon him to carry out to the full the duty
he has so gladly undertaken — the duty of making this "World's History," not an
aggregation of some fifty or sixty monographs, but a homogeneous record of human
life and development. By this means the authors of the various histories have
become collaborators on a whole in the highest sense of the term. At the same
'•'•<:'«-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
time, the editor accepts a share of their responsibility. The time has come when
this should be publicly stated. Vol. II. contains the history of India ; the editor
has contributed a considerable proportion of this in its present revised form.
This revision, however, would not have been possible to him had he not been
privileged to receive valuable information from various high authorities, and the
disinterested support of his younger confreres. He has further to acknowledge the
important contributions to the success of the work made by public bodies and
private persons, who gave access to the interesting originals reproduced as
illustrations. Our thanks are more especially due to the Directors of the
Ethnographical Museum at Berlin, the Imperial Library and Imperial Museum of
Natural History at Vienna, and His Highness Prince Roland Bonaparte ; the
originals of the illustrations for the history of China were for the most part placed
at our disposal by the lamented Professor C. Arendt (d. Jan. 30, 1902), and those
for the history of Oceania by Dr. Felix von Luschan, of Berlin.
H. F. H.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
JAPAN, CHINA, AND KOREA
1. Japan: (A) The Country and its Peopls; (£) The Age of the Gods and
Heroes ; ((7) The Legendary Period ; (D) Buddhism in Japan from its
Introduction in 552 A.D. to the Present Time ; (E) The Change of
Constitutional Form ; ($) The Minamoto, the Hojo, and the Ashikaga
(1186-1573); (G) Christianity and Foreign Influence in Japan (1543-
1624); (H) The Period of the Parvenus (1573-1600) ; (,/) The Origin
and Development of Feudalism: (A') The Tokugawa (1603 to 1868);
(L) The Fall of the Shogunate ; (M) The Modern Period Pages 1-56
2. China: (A) The Name; (B) The Country and its Population; (C) The
Mythical Period ; (D) The Legendary Period ; (E) The Religion, Philo-
sophy, and Civilisation of the Ancient Chinese ; (F) The Ancient History
of China; (£) Buddhism in China; (H) The Medieval History of
China; («/) The Beginnings of Christianity in China (635-1368);
(K) China during the Period of Transition from Medieval to Modern
Times; the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644); (L) The Second Period of
Christianity in China (from 1581); (M) The Modern History of China;
(N) Retrospect Pages 56-114
3. Korei: (A) The Country and its Population; (B) The Early History of
Korea; (C) The Medieval History of Korea; (D) Korea during the
Transition from Medieval to Modern Times; (E) The Modern Period
Pages 114-121
CHAPTER II
CENTRAL ASIA AND SIBERIA
1 The Earliest Period and the Historical Beginnings of Central Asia : (A) The
Country as the Theatre of Historical Events ; (B) The Economic Con-
ditions ; (C) The Prehistoric Period ; (D) The Rise of Nomadism
Pages 122-136
vi HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Ctitltl'llta
2. Central Asia after the Rise of the Mongolian Nomads: (.4) General
Remarks ; (B) The Huns ; (C) Western Central Asia and the adjoining
Countries ; (D) The Tarim Basin (East Turkestan) ; (E) The Western
Huns ; (F) Central Asia after the Fall of the Empire of the Huns ; (£) The
Turkish Empires ; (// ) Tibet ; (/) The State of Civilisation and Religion
iu Central Asia down to the Time of the Mongols . Pages 136-169
3. Central Asia from the Mongol Period to Modern Times : (A] Genghis Khan;
(B) The Mongol Empire down to its Partition ; (C} The F.ill of the
Mongol World-Empire ; (7>) Timur (Tamerlane) ; (E) The Descen-
dants of Timur; (F) Tibet and Eastern Buddhism after the Close
of the Thirteenth Century; (G) Mongolia and the Tarirn Basin from
1300 to the Present Day ; (//) Western Turkestan from the Fall of the
House of Timur to the Advance of the Russians . Pages 169-109
4. Siberia and Asiatic Russia: (A) The Hyperborean Zone; (B) The West
Siberians; (C) The East Siberians; (/)) The Nations on the Coast and
on the Islands of the North- Western Pacific Ocean; (E) The Russians
in Siberia and Central Asia ..... Pages 199 229
CHAPTER III
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
1. Introductory Remarks ....... Pages 230-234
2. Australia and Tasmania as Parts of the Inhabited Earth: (A) Australia;
(B) Tasmania Pages 234-240
3. The Population of Australia and Tasmania : (^4) The Anthropological Position
of the Australians ; (B) The Anthropological Position of the Tasmanians;
(C) The Whites Pages 240-245
4. The Asctrtainable Facts in the History of the Australians and Tasmanians:
(A) Inductions from the Pre-European Period ; (B) The History of the
Tasmanians ; (C) The History of the Australians . Pages 245-252
5. The Colonial History of Australia and Tasmania : (.4) The Opening of the
Colonial History of Australia ; (B) The Growth and Development of the
Daughter Colonies down to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century ;
(C1) The Colonies in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Pages 252-299
6. Oceania as Part of the Inhabited World : (.4) The Position, Size, and Dis-
tribution of the Islands ; (B) The Configuration of the Islands ; ((7) The
Climate of Oceania ; (D) The Flora of Oceania ; (E) The Fauna of
Oceania Pages 299-305
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD vii
Contents
7. The Population of Oceania : (A) The Anthropological Position of the
Oceanians; (/») The Wanderings of the Oceanians . Pages 305-308
8. The History of the Oceanians : (A) Conjectures as to the Primitive History
of the Oceanians ; (B) The History of the Melanesians ; (C) The History
of the Micrones-ians ; (Z>) The History of the Polynesians
Pages 308-340
9. Missionary Work in the South Sea: (A) Missions in Australia; (B) Mis-
sions in Oceania ........ Pages 340-342
10. The Colonial History of the South Sea .... Pages 342-344
1 1 . The Antarctic Region Page 344
CHAPTER IV
INDIA
1. The Characteristics of Nearer India: (.4) The Country'; (£) The Popula-
tion .......... Pages 345-355
2. The History of India : (A) Ancient India ; (B) The Mohammedan Period
of India (1001-1740); (C} The Opening of India by Europeans and
the Struggle for Economic Supremacy (1498-1858) . Pages 355-493
3. Ceylon: (A) The Nature of Ceylon; (B) The Prehistoric Period of Ceylon ;
(C) The Early History of Ceylon (300 B.C. to 1500 A.D.) ; (D) The
Later History of Ceylon (since 1500) .... Pages 494-514
4. Indo-China: (A) Configuration; (B) The Prehistoric Period and Early
History of Indo-China ; (C) The History of Indo-China Pa yes 514-534
CHAPTER V
INDONESIA
1. Ethnographical Survey ....... Pages 535-536
2. Indonesian History: (.1) The Primitive Historical Conditions; (B) The
Present Distribution of the Nations of Indonesia; (Cf) The Wanderings
of the Malays ; (D) Foreign Interference ; (E) The Several Parts of
Indonesia in their Individual Historical Development . Pages 53G-572
3. Madagascar: (A) The Primitive History of Madagascar; (B) The Authen-
ticated History of Madagascar; (C) The Mascarenes . Pages 572-579
viii HISTORY OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER VI
THE HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
1 . The Position and Shape of the Indian Ocean . . . Pages 580-583
2. The Dawn of History . . . . . . . Pages 583-586
3. The Historic Period down to the Appearance of Islam : (A) The Period
down to the Appearance of the Chinese ; (7?) From the Appearance of
the Chinese on the Scene to Mahomet . . . Pages 586-594
4. From Mahomet to Vasco da Gama : (A) The East ; (B] The West
Pages 594-601
5. Modern Times : (A) From Vasco da Gama to the Beginning of the British
Rule in India (1498-1757) ; (B) From the Beginning of the British
Sovereignty in India to the Cutting of the Isthmus of Suez (1757-1859);
(C) The Present Day (after 1859) .... Pages 601-612
6. Retrospect and Outlook ....... Pages 612-613
INDEX ........... Pages 617-642
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
The Abduction of Go Shirakawa, former Emperor of Japan,
by Frigiwara No Nobuyori, in the year 1159 (Coloured] . racing paye 18
The Burial Place and Temple Groves of Nikko in Japan . „ 40
Old Chinese Stone Carving in Relief; Ornamentation in Bas-
relief on the sixth stone of the nearer Burial Vault of
the Family Wu in Shantung, about 150 A.D. ... ,, 68
Heroes and Heroines of Chinese History . . . . ,, 90
Four Eminent Chinese at the Close of the Nineteenth Century „ 108
Chinese Residences at Canton . . . . . . „ 114
The Eighth Page from the Old Turkish Book of Ethics, the
Kudatku Bilik „ 158
The Gate of Kin- Yung Kwan ' . „ 168
Timur's Burial Place ........ ,, 184
Specimens of Melanesian Carving (Coloured) .... ,, 304
Specimens of Micronesian Carving (Coloured) . , . . ,, 812
Polynesian Antiquities and Carvings ..... „ 332
Benares on the Ganges ........ „ 370
Ancient Indian Sculpture ....... ,, 390
The Interior of a Jain Temple at Mount Abu in Rajputana . „ 402
Colonnade in the Interior of the Hindu Temple on the Island
of Rameswaram, Southern India ..... „ 412
Early Indian Art and Architecture ..... „ 418
The Taj-Mahal at Agra (Coloured) „ 438
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Illustrations
Victoria Railway Station and Terminus in Bombay . . Facing page 492
Early Buddhist Temple Buildings, and the Ruwanweli Dagoba
at Anuradhapura ....... :, 500
Buddha and his Pupils : Stone Figures from the Interior of
the Siamese Pagoda of Vat Suthat in Bangkok . . „ 518
Two Illustrations of Hindu Mythology : from the Temple of
Kusamba in Kelungkung, South-East Bali ... „ 568
Japan and Korea .........
China and Japan . . . . .
Central Asia ........ . .
The Mongolian Empire from the Twelfth to Fifteenth Century
The North Polar Regions .......
Siberia ...........
Oceania ...........
The East Indies from the First Invasion of the Mohammedans,
1001, to the Fall of the Great Mogul Empire, 1788
Further India and Malay Archipelago .....
The Indian Ocean .
Facing page
2
58
122
174
200
208
232
430
538
580
I
JAPAN, CHINA, AND KOEEA
BY MAX VON BKANDT
FORMERLY GERMAN RESIDENT MINISTER IN JAPAN AND AMBASSADOR TO CHINA
1. JAPAN
A. THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
(a) Oonfiguration. — The Japanese islands Kyushu (Saikaido), Shikoku, Hondo
(Houshiu, Nippon), Yezo (Hokkaido), and Saghalien (Karafuto, Krafto), the last
of which is separated from Japan only politically (since 1875), confront the conti-
nent of Eastern Asia from the southern promontory of Korea on the southwest up
to the mouth of the Amur on the northwest, and are divided from it by that great
mediterranean sea known as the Sea of Japan, which is connected by a few narrow
straits with the Pacific Ocean and its component seas. On the north, the island
of Saghalien is divided from the mainland by that passage which has been known
to Europeans for the last fifty years only as the Nevelski Strait, or Gulf of Tartary.
On the south, the Sea of Japan and the eastern Chinese Sea are joined by the
Straits of Korea, which lead between Korea and Hondo, and are further subdivided
into three passages by the islands of Tsushima and Iki(-shima). On the east, the
Tsugaru (or La Perouse) Strait, between Yezo and Saghalien, make communica-
tion possible between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan. But hitherto this
great mediterranean sea has been rather an obstacle than a means of communi-
cation. In prehistoric times there may have been one or two immigrations from
the Asiatic mainland into the chief islands of Japan by way of Saghalien and Yezo,
but it is only in comparatively recent years that unimportant bodies of Giljaks
have crossed the five-mile breadth of the straits and driven the Ainos out of the
northern part of Saghalien. Evidence, also exists of an immigration from Korea
to Hondo as early as the second century A. D., though this passage had undoubt-
edly been traversed at an earlier period.
The long-drawn islands of Japan, which extend from 24° 20' to 54° 20' latitude
north, are of volcanic origin ; the numerous mountain ranges of the interior, which
generally run from southwest to northeast, or from south-southwest to north-
northeast, contain many volcanoes, some of which are apparently extinct, while a
considerable number are yet active. Everywhere throughout the country traces
are constantly to be found of volcanic action yet in progress in the shape of sul-
VOL. II - 1
2 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
phur vents aiid hot springs; it is indeed remarkable that these phenomena seem
to have exercised no influence upon Japanese cosmogony or upon the mythology of
the native Shintoism. An important part is played by the warm, dark-coloured
stream known as the " black river " (Kuro Shi wo), which rises between Luzon and
Formosa and washes with its main current the southeastern coasts of Kyushu,
Shikoku, and Hondo, and gives their soil the luxuriant verdure and fertility of
tropical regions. The climate of the northwest coast of Hondo is not so warm,
though even here the cultivation of the tea-plant, which usually ceases at latitude
36° north, has been continued nearly as far as latitude 39° north ; however, the
Wiirm and cold streams which flow into the Sea of Japan from south and north
produce many fogs and make it dangerous and inhospitable. Far greater influence
has been exercised upon the development and the history of the country by the
conformation of the coast line (see the map, " Japan and Korea "). On the south-
eastern side of the main islands, especially in Shikoku and Kyushu, the coast line
for the most part is precipitous and falls down sheer to the sea, while at the
same time providing countless bays and harbours, great and small, as a sure refuge
for fishermen and mariners ; on the other hand, the northwest coast of Hondo is
flat, covered with sand and shingle, and almost harbourless. For this reason the
southeast coast was naturally populated more densely and at an earlier period.
(b) The Population. — Our information concerning the earliest inhabitants of
Japan is alike scanty and unreliable. At different spots in Yezo and the Kurile
islands excavations have been found from three to six feet deep, with a length or
diameter of fifteen to twenty feet ; these lie in groups, numbering as many as one
thousand, and are attributed by the Ainos to a people called Koko-pok-guru (" peo-
ple having excavations," " cave-dwellers ") or Koshito (" dwarfs "), who are said to
have inhabited the island before the Ainos and to have been exterminated by them.
These holes were probably covered with a roofing of branches on which earth was
laid. Excavations in their neighbourhood have brought to light potsherds and stone
arrows, a fact which is the more remarkable, as the Ainos seem never to have learnt
the art of making pottery, which they do not even now possess. On the other
hand, a few centuries ago they also made use of stone arrowheads ; these were
then replaced by points of bamboo, which are both more easily made and better
suited to hold the poison which they employ in hunting.
Nothing is known as to the origin of the Koko-pok-guru or of the Ainos (Ainu,
Ebisu, Emishi ; cf. below, p. 214) ; apparently both peoples immigrated from the
north at an early period, and the Ainos at any rate advanced as far as the northern
half of Hondo, and perhaps even farther south. Some authorities consider the
Ainos as a Mongolian, others as a Polynesian people. Dr. E. Baelz places them
among the .Caucasian races, and believes them to have been related to the Mujiks,
the peasants of Great Eussia ; their resemblance to these, at any rate in advanced
years, is certainly remarkable. In this case we must consider the Ainos as mem-
bers of a greater continental race, which migrated to Japan in prehistoric times and
was gradually driven further northward by later arrivals, ultimately crossing into
Yezo by the Tsugaru Strait. There are probably twenty thousand of them in Yezo,
the southern part of Saghalien, and in the Kuriles. Where their race has main-
tained its purity, their civilization is scarcely higher than it was at the time when
they first came in contact with the Japanese.
I
6"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 3
The origin of the Japanese is also wrapped in mystery. The attempt to solve
the problem from the anthropological side, and to consider the modern Japanese as
a mixed people consisting of Aino, Korean, Chinese, and Malayo-Chinese elements,
may be said to have been successful, in so far as all these races have undoubtedly
contributed to the formation of the nationality now inhabiting Japan ; but no proof
ihas been brought forward to show to which of these races the main body of those
immigrants belonged, who probably made their way into Japan long before the
seventh century B. c.
Ethnological comparisons promise better results. The practice of soothsaying
by means of the shoulder-bones of a slaughtered animal, and that of sending horses
and servants to accompany a dead prince, who were not killed and buried with
him, but were partly buried in an upright posture round the grave mound to serve
as a living fence, — these seem to have been Japanese customs from a very early
antiquity. For purposes of soothsaying they used the shoulder-bones of the stag ;
the sheep, which is usually employed for this purpose in Northern Asia, is not found
in Japan. Concerning their burial customs, the chronicles known as the Nihongi
speak as follows : "The brother of the emperor Suinin [29 B.C. -70 A. D.] died
and was buried at Musa. All those who had been in his personal service were
.gathered together and were buried alive in an upright position around his barrow.
They did not die for many days, but wept and bewailed day and night. At length
they died and became putrid. Dogs and crows came together and ate them up."
The emperor, who had also listened to the lamentations, ordered the abolition of
this custom ; and it is said that from the year 3 A. D. clay figures instead of human
ibeiugs were buried in or about the barrows. Pieces of these figures are constantly
iound at the present day. However, this ordinance was frequently disregarded.
Thus the Chinese annals of the Wei dynasty stated that, on the death of the
•empress regent Himeko (Jingo Kogu, according to the Japanese lists), in the year
247 A. D., a large mound was piled above her grave, and more than a thousand of
lier male and female servants followed her to death. It is indeed difficult to eradi-
cate customs which have become part and parcel of the national life, as is the
•case when the unwilling sacrifice has become voluntary in the course of centuries
and is considered an honourable duty. In the year 646 A. D. the mikado issued
an order for the cessation of all these customs, — namely, suicide or the murder of
others for the purpose of sharing the fate of the deceased, the killing of his horses,
the burying of treasure for the benefit of the dead, the cutting short the hair, stab-
ting in the thigh, or loud wailing on the part of mourners ; yet almost a thousand
years later we find leyasu obliged to forbid the Samurai to kill or mutilate them-
selves upon their master's grave.
Both of these customs, divination by shoulder-bones and the slaughter of ser-
vants at their master's grave, are undoubtedly of North Asiatic or Tartar origin.
In China they also existed. Kungfutse mentions the second of these customs as
belonging to antiquity, as also the substitution of wooden figures for human sacri-
fices; and the last known example occurs in the time of the present Manchu
dynasty after Kanghis's ascent of the throne (1662). They are to be retraced to the
influence of Tartar dynasties. Moreover, the obscene characters of the Shintoist
mythology and the popular phallus-worship, which was practised without conceal-
ment in Japan so recently as 1860, are evidences in favour of a Tartar-Shamanist
origin. Finally, it is important to observe that the earliest events of importance
4 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
in the Shinto mythology are laid not in Kyushu, which would be evidence in
favour of an immigration from the west or south, but in Izumo, Yamato, and Setsu,
thus pointing to a migration from the north. According to Chinese annalists,
Korea was conquered and civilized by a member of the Shan dynasty, Kitsze, on
the fall of that dynasty, 1122 B. c. ; therefore the migration from Korea to Japan
must have taken place before that date, as the immigrants in question had cer-
tainly never come in contact with Chinese civilization. It is, however, quite pos-
sible that this migration may have started from one of the Manchurian States
(for example, Funu) lying to the north of Korea. According to Chinese sources
of information the inhabitants of these districts seem to have had many ideas
and customs corresponding to those of Old Japan. In that case old Engelbert
Kampfer was correct when he wrote in his " Amoanitates Exoticae " in 1712 :
" Latuerunt diu obscuro nomine e Datz seu Tartaria hospites in Japonia et per pro-
mncias disseminati incultam ichtyophagorum vitam mxerunt " (" Strangers from
Datz or Tartary have long lain concealed in Japan under a name of doubtful
meaning, and, scattered about the provinces, lived the wild life of fish-eaters ").
B. THE AGE OF THE GODS AND HEROES (TO THE APPARENT FOUNDATION OF
THE EMPIRE IN 660 B.C.)
THE age of the Japanese gods and heroes falls into two divisions, seven genera-
tions of heavenly beings and five of earthly, embracing altogether many hundreds
of thousands of millions of years. In the beginning was Chaos, a monotonous and
stormy sea out of which, by degrees, the light, pure elements arose and formed the
heaven, while the gross and heavy sank to create the earth. Between the two
appeared the first god, the lord of the eternal kingdom. The duration of his reign
is given as one hundred thousand millions of years ; and the two self-created
deities, who succeeded to his throne in turn, ruled each for a like period. Then
followed three pairs of male and female deities, who created their successors by
sinking into contemplation of one another ; they ruled during six hundred thou-
sand millions of years, and, like their predecessors, in virtue of the power of an
element possessed by each, water, fire, wood, metal, and the earth. The last or
seventh generation of the heavenly beings includes the male Isanagi no mikoto
and the female Isanami no mikoto. These two were the first to be carnally con-
joined, and created the eight lands, that is, the islands and provinces of Japan
(eight is the sacred number constantly recurring in the Shinto religion), the sea,
the rivers, the mountains, the first trees and the first plants, the goddesses of the
sun and moon, the sea-god Yebis, and the god of the storms ; then they returned
again to the heavens. They conclude the seven generations of the heavenly beings.
The five generations of terrestrial spirits form what may be called the heroic
period of Japanese history. The bad spirit, Sofan, the god of the winds and storms,
whom Japanese expositors identify with winter, is overcome by the vivifying
influence of the sun-goddess, Amaterasu, and the earth is made fruitful. Sofan
submits and descends to the earth, where he frees the daughter of the first human
couple from a dragon in the province of Izumo, and. marries her. After begetting
a son, he leaves her and retires to the desert in the southeast of Japan, which has
been previously assigned to him by his parents as a dwelling-place. The grandson
' of the sun-goddess, Amatsu, is then said to have been made ruler of the earth ; and
iSSiS*"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 5
different children of the gods come down to the earth to drive away the evil spirits
and to make all things ready for the arrival of the god, but instead of fulfilling
their task, they settle upon the earth, and enter into alliance with the son of Sofan.
Two new messengers from the gods, themselves also of divine nature (Kami),
succeed in reducing their refractory forerunners to obedience. Some of the terres-
trial Kamis submit, others are destroyed. Amatsu comes down to earth, and takes
over the government of the province of Hyuga in Kyushu. He is followed by his
son and grandson, with whom the succession of the terrestrial spirits comes to an
end. The historical age, according to the Japanese, then begins.
Ihauriko, the youngest son of the last terrestrial spirit and the daughter of the
dragon-god Kiosiu, whom Japanese expositors would consider as a ruler of the
Liukiu islands, succeeds his father in the government of Hyuga in virtue of
his high capacities. In the year 667 B. c., at the age of forty-five, he advances
with his three brothers to conquer the whole kingdom. He first subdues Tsukushi
(the modern Chikuzen and Chikugo), then Kibi (that is, Bizen, Bichiu, and Bingo)
in Kyushu, and also Aki in Hondo. After three years of preparation for a further
campaign he sails along the coast with his fleet to Naniwa (Osaka), where he lands.
However, at Kusagesaka in Yamato and at Kumano in Kii he is beaten, and is
obliged to retire to his fleet. He loses the greater part of his ships in a storm ; the
remainder are saved only by the devotion of two of his brothers, who cast them-
selves into the sea to appease the anger of the gods. With fresh troops he returns
to Yamato, and in the year 660 B. c. subdues the independent petty chiefs, partly
by treachery, his supremacy being established by the surrender of the tokens of
•empire, the sword, mirror, and insignia (pearls ?), which had hitherto been in different
hands. He builds his residence, half palace and half temple (that is, house for
ancestors) on the mountain Unchi in Yamato, and hands over the government
of the kingdom to four ministers, one of whom becomes the ancestor of the famous
family of the Fujiwara. The first tenno (heavenly king) of Japan is known by
the name of Jimmu (spirit of war), which was given him after his death ; so run
the Japanese narratives.
If there be any substratum of reality to these traditions, it probably consists in
the fact that the main settlement of the immigrants was situated in the provinces
of Izumo, Yamato, and Setsu, which were united at a later period with Yamashiro
and Kawachi, and formed the Gokinai (the five original provinces), which was the
•central point of the kingdom. From this centre the advance to the conquest of
the western and southern districts was made. Probably Jimmu's expedition was
undertaken to enforce the recognition of actual or putative rights which had existed
at an earlier period ; he is said to have married the daughter of the ruler of Izumo.
The struggles appear to have been fought out between members of the same clan.
Whether the Takeru, who are mentioned later as inhabiting Kyushu, are to be
identified with the Kumaoso (Kumaso), whether they were members of the im-
migrant hosts, whether and how far they were commingled with the Malay-Chinese
or Korean nationalities, are problems insoluble at the moment. According to
Japanese sources of information, the first Korean immigration is said to have taken
place in 59 A. D. ; however, embassies from Korea seem to have arrived in the
•country as early as 33 B.C. In the northeast the Ainos were the only enemies
with whom the immigrants had to contend, although their opponents in that
direction are mentioned under different names.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
C. THE LEGENDARY PERIOD (UNTIL THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM,
552 A. D.)
(a) Foreign Relations. — The great obstacle to the proper comprehension and
relation of early Japanese history is the fact that native historical records are
entirely wanting until the eighth century A. D. Until the sixth century A. D. the
-Japanese possessed no system of writing of any kind, and from that period until
the invention of the Katakana script in the ninth century they used nothing
but the Chinese characters. The oldest piece of historical writing extant, the
Kojiki, the book of the old traditions, was completed in the years 711 and 712;
two older works apparently belonging to the years 620 and 681 have been lost.
The Kojiki contains the history of the creation of the gods and heroes, and of the
mikados, up to the year 628 A. D. ; it was printed for the first time between 1624
and 1642. The next work in point of age, the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan),
belongs to the year 720 A. D., and treats of the same subject-matter as the Kojiki,
except that it carries on the annals of the emperors to 699. For this reason, apart
from the fact that Chinese, Korean, Buddhist, and Confucian influences are very
strongly marked, these books can only be used with the utmost caution. The lists
of rulers given by them often fail to correspond with those contained in Chinese
works upon the subject (for example, Matuanlin) ; moreover, they obviously bear
the stamp of improbability. For instance, they relate that Jimmu reached the age
of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and that among his first sixteen successors,
the last of whom died 399 A. D., thirteen lived more than one hundred years ; one
of them, Suinin, the Solon of Japanese history, lived one hundred and forty-one
years, and ruled for ninety-nine of them. Moreover, the long line of the mikados.
(the ruling mikado, Mutsuhito, is the one hundred and twenty-third) does not con-
tinue in direct succession according to our ideas, but, as even Japanese accounts.
admit, is broken by seven empresses and many adopted children.
Where contemporary Chinese and Korean accounts exist side by side, — and this
is constantly the case in the histories of the individual dynasties and states of these
countries, — the Japanese versions usually appear wholly unreliable. For instance,
as regards the empress Jingo Kogu (201-269) and her reported successful conquest
in 202 of Shiraki (Silla) in Korea, the account given by the writer of the Nihongi
is adorned with the most impossible extravagances. Apart from all the evidence
against any historical foundation to the narrative (such as the mention of names
which can be proved not to have existed at that period, etc.), the Chinese and
Korean annalists mention Japanese attacks against Silla only in the years 209,
233, and 249. The first was a wholly unimportant event, while in the two latter
the Japanese were defeated with heavy losses in ships and troops. The annals of
the Chinese Wei dynasty of the year 247 mention the death of the queen Himeko,
(that is, Jingo Kogu), and relate that, after the outbreak of a civil war in which one
hundred thousand persons were killed, a girl of thirteen years of age succeeded to
the throne. This is a far more probable account than the story that Jingo Kogu
reigned sixty-eight years after her consort's death.
Influenced by these and similar discrepancies between the Chinese and Korean
historians on the one hand and the Japanese upon the other, W. G. Aston has
declared his conviction that the Japanese narratives are unworthy of credence, not
f"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 7
only up to 400 and 500 A. D., but also during the sixth century of our era. He
considers that the first demonstrably historical event in the Japanese chronology
occurs in the year 461. Japanese history properly so called does not begin before
500 A. D., and the introduction of Chinese civilization into Japan took place one
hundred and twenty years later than the date given by the Japanese to that event,
- in 397 A. D., instead of 277 A. D. Modern Japanese criticism has also declared
against the credibility of the Nihongi. In 1889 Tachibana Eiohei collected a large
number of instances showing the unreliable character of the work. According to the
Nihongi, Yamato-dake, the national hero of the Japanese, died in the forty-third
year of the emperor Keiko, that is, 114 A. D. ; but his son Tsinai, according to the
same authority, was born in the nineteenth year of the reign of Seimu (150), that is,
thirty-six years after his father's death. Prince Oho usu no mikoto was the twin
brother of Yamato-dake ; the latter was aged sixteen when he took the field against
the Kumasos in 98 A. D., so that the brothers must have been born in 83 A. D. But
the Nihongi informs us that prince Oho seduced a nobleman's daughter in the
year 75, that is, eight years before his birth. A large number of similar dis-
crepancies have been collected by Tachibana.
Consequently, to reconstruct Japanese history from the foundation of the
kingdom (660 A. D.) to the introduction of Buddhism, we are forced to restrict
ourselves to such information as can be checked and corrected by accounts other
than Japanese. These latter are, at best, nothing but a patchwork of incredible
traditions arbitrarily put together, apparently with the object of providing some
support for the claims which the ruling dynasty advanced at a later period.
Hence there can be no possible doubt that the three original settlements of the
immigrants, Yamato, Izumo, and Tsukushi (north Kyushu), existed independently
of one another long after the time of Jimmu tenno. In the annals of the Han
dynasty (25—220 A. D.) mention is made of Japanese embassies which could only
have been sent out by petty princes. The Chinese records compiled by Matuanliii
in the thirteenth century show how low was the stage of Japanese development at
the time when these accounts were written.
The annals of the later Han say that there is a mountainous island to the
southeast of Korea, divided into more than a hundred districts. After the conquest
of Korea by Wuti (140-86 B. c.) thirty-two of these tribes, who called their
hereditary rulers kings, are said to have entered into communication by messenger
with the authorities of the Han. The ruler of Great Wo (Wa, Japan) resided in
Yamato. Their customs were similar to those of the province of Tschekiang,
which lay opposite to Wo. The soil was suitable for the cultivation of corn, hemp,
and mulberry-trees. The people understood the art of weaving. The country
produced white pearls and green nephrite. In the mountains there was cinnabar.
The climate was mild, and vegetables could be cultivated both in winter and
summer. They had no oxen, horses, tigers, leopards, or magpies. Their soldiers
carried spears and shields, bows and arrows of wood, the points in many cases
being made of bone. The men tattooed their faces and bodies with designs.
Difference of rank was denoted by the size and position of these designs. The
clothes of the men were fastened crossways by knots, and consisted of one piece
of material. The women bound up their hair in a knot, and their clothes resem-
ble Chinese clothes of the thickness of one piece ; these they drew over their
heads. They used red and purple colours to besmear their bodies as the Chinese
8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapter I
used rice powder. They had forts and houses protected with palisading. The
father and mother, the older and younger brothers of a family lived apart, but
when they came together no difference was made between the sexes. They took
up their food in their hands, but laid it upon plates of bamboo and wooden dishes.
They all went barefoot. Reverence was paid by crouching low. They were very
fond of strong drink. They were a long-lived race, and people a hundred years
old were constantly met with. The women were more numerous than the men.
All men of high rank had four or five wives, others two or three. The wives were
faithful and not jealous. Theft was unknown and litigation extremely rare. The
wives and children of criminals were confiscated, and for grave offences the crim-
inal's family was destroyed. Mourning lasted only ten days ; duiing that period
the members of the family wept and lamented, while their friends came, sang,
danced, and made music. They practised soothsaying by burning bones (over the
fire), and thereby (pre)determining good or evil fortune. They appointed one man
who was known as the " public mourner ; " he was not allowed to comb his hair,
to wash, to eat meat, or to approach any woman. If they, the survivors, were pro-
sperous, they made him valuable presents ; but if misfortune came upon them, they
blamed the " mourner " for having broken his vows, and all joined in killing him,
a custom the existence of which is confirmed by Japanese sources.
Further on we are told, " Between 147 and 190 Wo was in a state of great
confusion, and civil wars continued for many years, during which period there was
no ruler. Then a woman Pimihu (Hirneko) appeared. She was old and unmarried,
and had devoted herself to the arts of magic, so that she was able to deceive the
people. The people agreed to recognize her as queen. She has one thousand
male servants ; but few see her face, except one man, who brings her meals and
maintains communication with her. She lives in a palace of airy rooms, which is
surrounded by a palisade and protected by a guard of soldiers."
From the third century A. D. we have constant references to embassies from
Japan to China bringing presents (tribute) and seeking grants of titles and seals.
Many of such mentions may have been inspired by Chinese vanity alone ; none the
less it is quite possible that the half-barbarian Japanese of that age may have been
flattered by the conferment of such outward distinctions, although their descend-
ants naturally deny the dependency of their country upon China. Traces of a
certain degree of dependency are to be found until the period of the great Mongol
invasion of 1870-1380.
From the last century B. c. more constant and closer connections subsisted
between Japan and the States on the south of the Korean peninsula, Peh tsi
(Pe'kche', Hiak'sai, Kudara), Shinra (Shiragi, Silla Sinlo), Kara and Kaya (Mimana),
Kokuli (Konia, Korai). It is not easy to distinguish the character or results of
the various embassies, incursions, and larger expeditions undertaken by the State
or by individuals ; at any rate, many of the hostile descents of the Japanese upon
the Korean seaboard of which we hear were made as often for piratical purposes as
to support one or other of the political parties in Korea. The Japanese State was
too loosely organised at that period to have provided the impulse to each one of
these different movements. E. H. Parker, who has made a special study of the
relations of China and Japan with Korea, says on this point : " The Chinese twice
overran Korea, once in the third century B. c. and once in the seventh century A. D.
In both cases their personal government was of short duration, and their vice-
na'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 9
royalty never extended over the northern half, and for some time not even beyond
the mountain range which divides the northern half into eastern and western
portions. The Japanese never set foot in that part of Korea which was actually
under Chinese influence, except during a few mouths at the time of Hideyoshi at
the end of the sixteenth century. They never really subdued any part of Korea.
It is, however, possible that scattered remnants of the Japanese races may have
existed in the extreme south of the peninsula during the first century A. D. There
is no doubt that Japanese influence was strong in the southwestern parts until the
second Chinese invasion ; at a later time they were mere pirates, until Hideyoshi
conceived the idea of attacking China by way of Korea. On the other hand, the
Japanese from the earliest to the latest periods seem to have possessed a settle-
ment in the extreme south of Korea, or at Fusan."
(b) Internal Development. — Japanese records mention many battles with the
Kumaso in Kyushu, who were either invaded and attacked in their own country,
•or themselves invaded and overran the western provinces of the chief island. The
first battles against these eastern neighbours are those mentioned as having occurred
under the emperor Keiko (71-130 A. D.). His son Yamato-dake, the warrior prince,
carried the fame of the Japanese arms, though certainly only for a time, into the
mountain district of Nikko, north of the modern capital of Tokio. In other re-
spects the records are confined to accounts of the gradual and very slow internal
development of the interior, which is naturally ascribed to the enterprise of indi-
vidual emperors. Sfijin, the tenth emperor (97-30 B. c.), is said to have constructed
the first aqueduct for the irrigation of the rice fields. His successor, Suinin (29 B. c.-
70 A. D.), continued this work, and extended it by making canals ; he is also said to
liave encouraged the national kami (god) worship. He seems also to have been
the first to introduce a system of taxation, a reform of which the chief object
was to provide funds for religious worship. Under the twelfth mikado, Seimu
(131-190), the expedition against the Ainos of the east took place, and under the
fifteenth, the empress Jingo Kogo (201-269), occurred the fabulous voyage to
Korea. Her son Ojin, of whom she is said to have been pregnant at that time,
and who for that reason has been worshipped at a later period as the god of war,
Hachiman, succeeded her (270-310), and is reported to have paid special attention
to trade and manufactures, teachers of which he brought over from Korea. His
successors imitated his example, and thus we reach the epoch of the introduction
of western civilization into Japan, although many of the statements upon this
subject must be considerably post-dated.
During the whole of this period the immigrants seem to have been in no very
close relations with the emperor. Tokuzo Fukuda connects these " Yamato "
together even during their earliest period by the fusion of three subordinate
tribes, — the Tenson (grandsons of the heaven), Tenjin (heavenly deities), and
Chiji (earthly deities), standing in different degrees of relationship to the sun-
goddess. But here he is probably describing the results of later developments ;
such distinctions do not usually become manifest until the necessity becomes
•apparent for sharper lines of demarcation between the upper and lower grades of
society, and this can hardly have become imperative at the stage of development
reached by the immigrants about 660 B. c. The development of the priesthood
must also have been a very slow process, even according to the Japanese reports.
10 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
The more pronounced ancestor worship with which were connected the more
definite distinctions of social rank may be ascribed to later Confucian influences.
This much is certain, that the race which held the upper hand in Central
Japan — the power of the Yamato scarcely reached beyond this region — was
composed of a large number of tribes (Uji), each of which had originated in a
single family. Both in Japan and China we find the same course of development
which has been followed in Greece, Home, Germany, and among the North Amer-
ican Indians. Such tribal unions increase to a remarkable degree the stability
and permanence of the body politic in which they pass the first stages of their
constitutional development. In Japan each tribe with its chief formed a self-
contained whole, the emperor's tribe under his personal leadership being the most
numerous and powerful. The worship of their common ancestor was the bond of
union within each individual Uji, and the worship of the sun-goddess formed the
tie between the imperial and the other tribes. The creation of fresh Ujis, espe-
cially such as were formed of prisoners of war, slaves, and Tomobe, seems to have
been a privilege of the emperor, who was allowed to incorporate such Ujis with
his own to increase the strength of his household troops. It seems that originally
within the Uji, while it was yet small, the products of hunting, fishing, and agri-
culture were held in common, and that ultimately there was community of all
acquisitions; in this way some organisation parallel to that of European trade
guilds in the Middle Ages may have been developed. The Uji could also enter
into external relations without losing its corporate character, appearing in some
respects as a legal personality. Certain offices belonged to the tribe and were
hereditary in it : the man followed the woman into her tribe, to which also the
children belonged. Here we have a remarkable coincidence with the customs of
the Iroquois, which perhaps originated at the time when women were scarce and
a girl was consequently a valuable possession to a tribe. The power which the
head of the tribe had over the members was very considerable, and appears to
have resembled the Eoman patria potestas ; on the other hand, the relations
of individual Ujis to the imperial tribe seem to have been very loose. Tokuzo
informs us that they consisted chiefly in the recognition of the emperor as high
priest for the worship of the common ancestral goddess, as lord of war, as the
representative of the common interests abroad, and as chief judge to decide dis-
putes between the different Ujis. The emperor had no right over the land or'
property of the Ujis.
D. BUDDHISM IN JAPAN FKOM ITS INTRODUCTION IN 552 A. D. TO THE
PRESENT TIME
BUDDHISM has been to Japan what classical antiquity and Christianity were to-
the West : it brought with it a better religion and Chinese civilization. The dif-
ferent accounts of the time and manner of its introduction are widely discrepant.
The most probable story is that in 552 a king of Kudara in Korea sent pictures
of Buddhist sacred history to the emperor Kimmei (540-571), and that the new
teaching fell upon fruitful soil. It does not, however, seem to have obtained a
footing in the country entirely unopposed ; in consequence of the outbreak of an
epidemic, under the emperor Bindatsu (572-585) it was persecuted and forbidden.
Prince Shotoku, a sou of the empress Suiko, seems to have materially influenced.
'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 11
the extension of Buddhism ; in 587 he built a great temple, and encouraged foun-
dations and organisations for works of mercy and charity. The new doctrine
obtained an informal official recognition from the emperor Sinmu (715-731), who
ordered the erection of a temple in every province of the empire.
Japanese Buddhism, like the Chinese and Korean forms, and perhaps under their
influence, was soon broken up into a number of sects (six) ; at the same time the
antagonism and hostility between Buddhism and Shintoism became strongly appa-
rent. It is remarkable that the emperors generally accepted the new teaching,
though it threatened from the outset to discredit their own divine origin. Thus
on both sides the desire may well have arisen to incorporate the new belief with
the old. In 794 the ernperor Kwammu changed his place of residence from
Nara to the modern Kioto ; at the same time the Japanese Buddhists began their
journey to China, in order to seek information and enlightenment at the sources
of the doctrine, which for Japan at least was new. Dengio went to China, and
on his return in 798 founded the Tendai sect, and the monastery Enriakuji on the
Hieizan as its centre of meeting and departure.
A yet more important influence upon the development of religion and of scien-
tific life and thought was exercised by Kukai (Kobodaishi, 774-835) ; he is also
said to have visited China, and upon his return in 816 to have founded the Shingon
sect. On the Koya mountain he founded the monastery of Kougaji, which became,
with the support of the emperor Saga, the central point, in many respects, of Japa-
nese Buddhism. Kobodaishi invented the Japanese alphabet, Iroha, consisting of
forty-seven signs, and also the first Japanese writing, the Katakara : hitherto only
the Chinese characters had been known, and these continued in use for the writing
of works of a scientific character. But the greatest achievement of Kobodaishi
was his effort, which attained a great measure of success, to make a fusion of Bud-
dhism and Shintoism. The old divinities were received into the Japanese heaven
and explained as incarnations of Buddha ; while the demi-god heroes and warriors
received general, or at any rate local, worship as " gongs." Thus he gave a Japanese
colouring to Buddhism. To him it is undoubtedly due that the emperors gave
their unconditional adherence to the foreign doctrine, which had now become
national. During several centuries after his age most of the emperors resigned
after a short rule, shaved their heads, and ended their lives as Buddhist monks.
To him also is to be ascribed the introduction of cremation ; in several cases even
the emperors accepted this custom.
During the struggles between the rival families of the Taira and Minamoto
the prestige and power of the Buddhist priesthood steadily increased. With Yori-
tomo's victory over his rival in 1186, and the removal of the capital of the shogun1
to Kamakura (near the modern Yokohama), begins the most brilliant age of Japa-
nese Buddhism, as regards the number of its sects, their power, and their political
influence. In 1191 Yeizai founded the Euizai sect; and Shinran, in 1220, founded
the Shin sect, the nationalist party of Japanese Buddhism. Shinran allowed the
priests of his sect to eat meat and to marry ; and in order to break down the bar-
riers between priest and people, removed the temples to the towns from the moun-
1 The shoguns were originally military commanders, four iu number, and ruling the four military
districts into which the empire was divided. But in 1192 the title was given to a supreme military chief
or field-marshal ; and from that date to 1868 there was an almost unbroken succession of shoguus, whose
importance will be seen in the later course of the narratiye.
12 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
tains and desert places where they had been previously erected. Contrary to the
usage of other sects, the writings of the Shin sect are in Japanese characters. They
are known by the names of Ikko (the first word of their most important work, the
book of everlasting life) and Monto (servant of the gate, referring to the unity of
their organisation). They are spoken of, and with much reason, as the Protestants
of Japan. They refuse to consider as obligatory not only celibacy and abstinence
from certain meats, as we have already observed, but also the practices of penance
and ascetic living, pilgrimages, and the monastic life. They teach that men are
justified by faith in Buddha. Among them the priesthood is hereditary. In 1227
the Yodo sect was founded by Daghiu, and in 1261 Nichiren founded the sect
which has been called after him, which may be considered as a counterpoise to
the Shin sect, and perhaps owes its origin to a feeling that some such opposition
was required. Like its founder, who escaped the death sentence pronounced upon
him by Hojo Tokeyori, owing to the miraculous splintering of the sword upon his
neck, this sect was invariably characterised by intolerance and fanaticism, and
therefore played a leading part in the struggle against the Christians. One of its
members was Kato Kiyomasa, that persecutor of the Christians who is a notorious
figure in the Jesuit relations at the outset of the seventeenth century; and its
motto was to be seen on the standards of many a general, — " Namu rnio ho ren
ge kio" ("Honour to the book of the law that bringeth redemption"), which
\v;is adopted in place of the old "Namu Amida Buddha" ("Honour to the Holy
Buddha"). In 1288 the last of the great sects, Ji ("Seasons of the year"), was
founded by Jippen.
During the wars which devastated the country between 1332 and 1602, the
priests kept alive the study of science and literature ; but they also took a very
definite part in the political struggles of the time, and many an abbot, harnessed
and armed, charged into the fray at the head of his monks and vassals. Hence it
was only to be expected that Ota Nobunaga, the first important personality who
made it his object to restore peace and order throughout the country and to secure
obedience to the emperor's will (though this redounded also to his own advantage),
should have turned upon the monasteries. In 1571 the worst of these spiritual
strongholds, the monastery of the Shingon sect on the Hieizan, was destroyed by
his orders and all its inhabitants slain. Some years later the same fate befell the
great temple of Hongwanji of the Shin sect in Osaka. The priests of this latter
had harboured robbers and also political opponents of Nobuuaga. After weeks of
fighting, three fortresses were captured out of the five which composed the monas-
tery. Upon the entrance of the mikado the survivors were permitted to depart
(two thousand of the garrison are said to have fallen during the siege). The
Buddhist priesthood, however, never recovered from these two blows; and even
though it was found necessary at a later period to break down one or another of the
strongholds of political Buddhism, Nobunaga had already performed the hardest
part of this task.
The Yodo sect was the most important under the Tokugawa rule. It is note-
worthy that the shoguns of this dynasty showed special favour to that sect, which
certainly was less cultivated than any other. Its priests followed the chief rules
of Indian Buddhism, and taught that the welfare of the soul depended rather upon
prayers, and upon the strict performance of external ceremonies and pious precepts,
than upon moral purity and perfection. The shogunate was therefore able to
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 13
entrust to this sect the religious guidance of the people without fear of any attempt
to exercise an influence in opposition to its own plans. The priests of this sect
also provided the services in the burial grounds of the shSguns at Shiba and Nikko
(see the plate, "The Burial Grounds and Temple Precincts of Nikko," p. 40).
The temple of Zozoji, situated in Shiba, which was burnt down in 1574, also
belonged to them. The Buddhism which had become the State religion, at any
rate of the shogun bureaucracy (Bak'fu), declined greatly in the later years of the
shoguuate, as did all other branches of the public service. It failed completely in
the final struggle of the shogunate against the mikado. After the shogun himself
had given up the contest, the adherents of the shogunate made an attempt to set
up an opposition mikado in the person of Biunoji no my a, a prince of the empire
and high priest of the Tendai sect, with a residence in the temple of Toyeisan in
Ugeno. This proceeding had, however, nothing to do with Buddhism as such ; it
was little more than an historical recollection of the reasons which had induced the
shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty to find an instrument for use against the mikado
in the chief of this sect, which the emperor Kwammu had joined upon its founda-
tion by a prince of the blood royal.
After the fall of the Tokugawa dynasty, the victors began to display a vio-
lent doctrinaire animosity against Buddhism which resulted in persecution. This
was the more natural as the literary activity of the Shintoists and authors who
gave themselves out to be Shintoists materially contributed, from the eighteenth
century onward, to bring about the downfall of the shogunate in 1868. The
mikado issued a decree making a sharp distinction between the Buddhist and
Shintoist forms of worship. Buddhist priests who had hitherto been allowed to
perform Shintoist ceremonies were now prohibited from doing so, and all temples
in which the two creeds had been united were assigned to the Shintoists. At the
same time a special ministerial department (the Shingaikwan) for the support of
Shintoist worship was created, the object of which was to spread Shintoist doc-
trines by means of missionaries educated for the purpose. In 1870 a new decree
appeared forming these missionaries into a kind of political corporation, to which
also prefects and other administrative officials might belong. In 1871 relations
between Buddhism and the government were entirely broken off. The Buddhist
sanctuary in the palace was closed, the Buddhist festival of the emperor abolished,
and the statue of Buddha removed from the palace. At the same time the titles
of honour given to the temples were annulled and their landed property was
sequestrated. In 1872 the government deprived the priests of their clerical titles
and dignities and ordered them to resume their family names. At the same time
the prohibitions against marriage and the eating of meat were removed, all temples
without priests and congregations were sequestrated, and the priests were forbidden
to appeal to the charity of their believers. The importance of these rules can be
easily understood if it be remembered that in 1872, in a population of rather more
than thirty-three millions, there were 72,000 Buddhist priests and 9,621 nuns, to
which must be added about 126,400 novices, students, and families belonging to
the Shin sect, and that the number of temples in the possession of the seven chief
sects amounted to more than 67,000.
These efforts of the government to suppress Buddhism and to revive Shintoism
remained fruitless, as was bound to be the case, for Shinto doctrine contains none
of those elements which are essential to successful religious propaganda. The
14 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chafteri.
Shingaikwan was consequently dissolved, and the religious question submitted to
the ordinary ministerial department of public worship, which now laid three
injunctions upon the state missionaries : they were to preach the fear of the gods
and the love of the fatherland ; to explain the laws of nature and sound morals ;
to serve the emperor and to obey his orders. At the same time the government
appointed for every Buddhist and Shintoist sect a chief of these official mission-
aries, and allowed the members of all Buddhist sects to preach when and where
they would, provided that they taught nothing opposed to the three injunctions
above mentioned. As these measures did not produce the desired result, the gov-
ernment abolished the official missionaries in 1884, and left the settlement of the
missionary question to the heads of the different sects whom it was to appoint.
Finally, in 1889 the new constitution recognised religious toleration as a cardinal
point. Proposals for a law to settle the questions concerning the Buddhist, Shin-
toist, and Christian sects were rejected by the first chamber in 1899. The most
obvious consequence of the government's interference in religious questions and of
the persecution of the Buddhists may be said to consist in the fact that, with the
exception of the Shin sect, which seems to have gained new strength in the struggle
for existence, all the Buddhist sects have suffered financially to a greater or less
extent, while their religion has emerged from the period of trial with advantage
rather than loss.
K THE CHANGE OF CONSTITUTIONAL FOKM
(a) The Supremacy of the Fujiwara. — If the Japanese annals are to be
believed, Jimmu, immediately after the foundation of the kingdom, handed over
the government to four ministers, one of whom was an ancestor of the family of
the Fujiwara. In this piece of information we may probably recognise nothing
more than a desire, formulated by this powerful family some fifteen hundred years
later, to justify their actual predominance by reference to an antiquity as remote
as possible. In reality the true state of affairs for a long period must have been
that the supreme chieftains (emperors ; Sumera Mikoto) of the victorious tribe,
who did not receive the Chinese title of " tenno " until a much later date, found
themselves obliged to defend and to extend their tottering supremacy as best they
could. As the emperors attempted to strengthen the forces under their control, so
also did the chieftains of other Ujis. In the course of centuries conflicts can be
shown to have been waged between the emperor and unruly Uji chiefs, which were
generally decided by the interference of other chiefs in favour of one or other of the
contending parties, and not always in favour of the rightful superior. Such strug-
gles constantly broke out over questions concerning the succession to the throne,
for it was not until the reign of Kwammu (782-806) that the right of primogeni-
ture was asserted, and it was some time before it advanced from the theoretical
to the practical stage.
These continual contests for power and supremacy involved the downfall of the
old tribal system. The ultimate causes of the change are to be found in the
increase of the population and consequently of the members of the individual Ujis,
and also in the increased necessity for labour to provide sustenance for individuals,
resulting in the abandonment of fishing and hunting for agriculture. The rise of
the family and of the individual within the tribe gradually made itself felt as a
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 15
danger both to the upper and to the lower strata of society : to the upper, because
the Uji system, in the event of a rapid increase in the members of the Uji, placed
these numbers at the immediate disposal of a vassal anxious to create disturbance ;
to the lower, because the tribe was no longer able to provide for the welfare of its
members. The Chinese constitution offered a solution of these difficulties, on which
the emperor or his councillors gladly seized. In the great neighbour kingdom the
monarch's person was unapproachable to the mass of the population. He ruled by
means of his officials, of whom he saw none but the highest. Everything in the
country, men as well as land, was his property, and was wholly subject to his will,
which he exercised through his ministers in the capital and through his viceroys
in the provinces. The constitution of the Japanese Empire now underwent a
change in. accordance with these principles. The mikado was nominally at the
head of the government : in practice, though not as a matter of right, he was con-
fined to the precincts of his palace, and as time went on became more and more a
stranger to his subjects. Ultimately he became, what he remained until 1868, a
mythical personality, for the possession of whom disputants would fight, because
this alone could give to their measures the stamp of legality ; but a personality
who could only give expression to his will, when his servants provided the means
to this end, with a view to their own advantage and aggrandisement. The execu-
tive power lay in the hands of the central administration, which had been remod-
elled after the Chinese pattern. This body was controlled by any one who had
sufficient strength or cunning to make himself master of the situation. From the
heads of tribes a court nobility, the kuges, was created, from which were selected
the high officials of the central administration and the viceroys of the provinces
and departments.
The tribes, as such, lost the political and economic importance which they had
hitherto possessed, and their property was no longer held in common. Their place
was taken by the family, the ko, in which the individual member had greater
freedom of action. On the other hand, again after the Chinese model, freedom
was limited and the solidarity of family life increased by the introduction of a new
system of police, to which the history of mediaeval England supplies a striking
parallel. The ko were organised in groups of five, and each group became answer-
able in common for its members : this regulation seems to have been further
strengthened by the creation of similar unions of ten families, or twenty, and so
on. Only a few of the greatest tribes, such as the Fujiwara, the Taira, and the
Minamoto, retained that influence which the Ujis had formerly exercised, and this
in spite of the fact that the unity of the members on which the strength of the
Uji had rested was now a thing of the past. We may, however, conclude that
these families, and especially the Fujiwara, were the chief agents in the intro-
duction of this change, which exercised so great an influence upon the whole of
Japanese internal development, that the battles of the next eight hundred years
were, almost without exception, fought out between and within such tribes. Such
a change was naturally slow of completion. Initiated and supported by Chinese
and Buddhist influences, a necessary condition of its accomplishment was the
downfall of the existing system, the reduction of the emperor's position which
that system strengthened, and above all things, energy and decision. As early as
603 the empress Suiko created twelve new grades of nobility; in 647 these were
reorganised in thirty subdivisions by the emperor Kotoku. In this institution we
16 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
may trace the origin of the kuges, the court nobility. In 603, also, eight ministers
of the imperial palace were created, to deal with administration and education,
ceremonies, finance, and the census, military affairs, the judicature, the exchequer,
and the domestic economy of the palace. At this time the " counsellor of the gods
of heaven and earth " (jingi kuan), who had previously been a supreme authority,
was deprived of his dignity by the progress of Buddhist influence. In 786 the
daijo kuan was created, a board of the chief officials of the realm, consisting of
four ministers (the princes and the chief of the kuges); these were the daijo
daijin (great minister of a great government), the sadaijin and the udaijin (great
ministers of the left and right), and the naidaijin (great private minister). The
entire government was in the hands of these officials. Finally, in the year 889 the
hereditary dignity of the kwambaku or regent was created.
Other changes exerted a deeper influence upon the social organism. Under the
emperor Kotoku (645-654), a succession of regulations called the Taikwa (this being
the name of the year-period in which they were issued) withdrew from the Ujis
the offices which had hitherto been connected with them, and arranged that these
offices should henceforward be held only by men of proved capacity ; the members
of the Ujis now became the vassals of the empire, and the land was divided into
provinces (kuni) and districts (kori), the inhabitants of which were now respon-
sible to the emperor for the payment of taxes in kind and the performance of
labour services. In the year 689 was promulgated the " Taiho," that is, the exist-
ing body of legislation reduced to writing. The most important point of this code
\\us the introduction of a system that had existed in China from immemorial
antiquity, the division of the arable land, all of which henceforward belonged
to the emperor, into temporary family holdings (on leases of six or twelve years) ;
the size of these was proportioned to that of the families that held them, and rent
was paid in the form of produce and of labour services. Forest, moorland, etc.,
remained common property. If the peasant brought fresh land under cultivation, he
had the right of usufruct for a considerable period free of taxation, and this right
he could even sell to others with the consent of the authorities. At a later period
this system of land tenure became the basis for the formation of the feudal state ;
at that time the territorial lords claimed to stand in the position of the emperor
toward the tenants, raised the taxation upon arable land from three to fifty per
cent, appropriated the common land, and respected only those articles of the code
which happened to correspond with their own convenience. Under this system
the possessions of the temples and monasteries increased with unusual rapidity;
in addition to the land which they gained by making clearings for cultivation, they
acquired, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions, rich presents and legacies, which
enabled the priests during the wars of the coming century to play a part by no
means in consonance with their vows of poverty.
In the year 669 Nakatomi no Kamatari received from the emperor Tensi, who
favoured his desires, the family name of "Fujiwara" (wistaria field, a name taken
f n »iii his place of birth). His family was of divine origin ; their ancestor was Amano
kovune no mikoto. One of their forefathers had accompanied Jimmu on his cam-
paign, and had received from him the daughter of a subjugated prince in marriage ;
another member had taken the family name of Xakatomi under the mikado Kiminei
'-"'71). Thus the Fujiwara were the oldest and most distinguished clan in
tin- Country after the mikado family. Of one hundred and fifty-five families com-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 17
posing the court nobility (Kuges), the first ninety-five traced their descent from
Kamatari, and it was from the first five of these, the Gosekke, that the mikado
was obliged to choose his consort. From 888 to 1868 the office of regent and
also that of daijo daijin was hereditary in this family. Its influence was further
increased by constant intermarriage with the house of the mikados, the daughters
of which were also almost invariably married into the same family. However,
this position of almost complete supremacy which the family had succeeded in
acquiring was destined to bring about the loss of its political power. In the hand
of the Fujiwara the mikados were mere puppets, generally children, and often in
their tenderest years. The provincial governors remained peacefully in Kioto, and
sent substitutes to occupy their posts. If a shogun was appointed to deal with a
revolt of the Ainos or of some governor, he left others to do the work, and remained
at court to lead the life of pleasure for which he found there all possible pro-
vision. Japanese literature centred round the court of the mikado, and in this
period attained its zenith; but the period was also one of extreme luxury and
unbridled immorality.
(b) The Wars of the Taira and of the Minamoto (until 1185 A. D.). — The real
power consequently passed by degrees into the hands of those who did the work of
the government. While the effeminacy of the court nobility increased, a stronger
caste rose into prominence, the Bukes, who may be defined as a military nobility.
The chief representatives of this caste were the two families of the Taira and the
Minamoto. The former traced their descent from Takamochi, the great-grandson
of the emperor Kwammu (782—806), while the latter family were descended from
Tsunemoto, a grandson of the emperor Seiwa; both were originally members of
the court nobility, five families of which retraced their origin to the Taira and
seventeen to the Minamoto as late as the year 1868. The first serious danger
with which the Fujiwara were confronted arose from a struggle for precedence
against the kuge family of the Sugawara, who were no less ancient than them-
selves. The conflict was fought out amid the intrigues of court life, and ended with
the overthrow of Michizane', the representative of the Sugawara family, who was
defeated in the reign of Daigo (898-930) and sent into exile. More dangerous
was the revolt of one Taira, who set himself up as emperor in Kwanto under the
mikado Shujaku (931-946), and was supported by some members of the Fujiwara;
the movement, however, was suppressed after a bloody conflict. The influence of
the Fujiwara in Kioto remained unimpaired until the beginning of the twelfth
century. The Taira were active in the south and west, the Minamoto in the north
and east, where they won a great military reputation, and gathered bands of bold
and predatory warriors around them. Both parties were fully occupied with wars
against the Ainos in the north, and against the Koreans who had invaded Kyushu
in the south.
Meanwhile, both the Taira and the Minamoto began to acquire influence in the
capital. A favourite of the emperor Toba, by name Taira no Tadamori, had a son
by one of his master's concubines (or by a servant of the palace whom he married
later) in 1118, whom he named Kiyomori. In the disputes concerning the succes-
sion which broke out upon the death of the emperor Konoye in the year 1155,
the two chief claimants for the throne were Shutoku, a former mikado, who had
abdicated in 1141, and now claimed the imperial title for his son, and Go Shi-
VOL. II— 2
18 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
rakawa, one of the sons of the emperor Toba, who had abdicated in 1123. Almost
all the Minamoto supported the first of these claimants, while the cause of the
other was espoused by the Taira. The latter succeeded in obtaining the election
of Go Shirakawa ; Kiyomori, who had inherited all the dignities and offices of his
father, offered to support him. In the battles between the two parties, Yoshitomo,
a member of the Minamoto, also fought on the side of the Taira. The Minamoto
were defeated ; their leader, Yorinaga, committed suicide, while another leader,
Tametomo, a renowned archer, was captured and banished. The victorious Kiyo-
mori was rewarded with the position of daijo daijin. He now ruled as the Fujiwara
had done before him. The Minamoto became the special objects of his hatred, and
he persecuted them with such ferocity that in 1159 Minamoto no Yoshitomo, who
had previously been on his side, declared against him. He, however, was quickly
overpowered and murdered while in flight. This victory gave Kiyomori absolute
predominance. His father-in-law, the mikado Go Shirakawa, who had abdicated
in 1158 (see the plate, "The Abduction of Go Shirakawa in the Year 1159"),
was sent into exile, and the war of extermination against the Minamoto con-
tinued. Yoritomo, the fourth son of Yoshitomo, escaped the fate of his brother
owing to the pleading of the sons of Kiyomori, and was sent into exile. Three
of his half-brothers, including the famous Yoshitsune, who was then an infant
at the breast, were spared for a like reason. Their mother, the fair Tokiwa, a
clever peasant woman by birth, who had been the concubine of Yoshitomo, saved
them after they had been cut off from flight by offering herself to the victor as his
concubine. Yoritomo, who had married the daughter of Hojo Tokimasa, the man
to whose custody he had been committed, raised the standard of revolt against the
Taira. His first attempt ended in disaster ; but he escaped to Kwanto, soon col-
lected a force, and fortified himself in Kamakura, where the Taira did not venture
to attack him. Shortly afterward (1181) Kiyomori died; his last words to his
family were that the observance of the usual burial customs were to be omitted in
his case, and that the only monument to be set up before his grave was the head of
Minamoto no Yoritomo.
His son Munemori possessed neither the capacity nor the bloodthirsty energy
of his father. He wasted valuable time in deliberation while his enemies in the
north, who were joined by the remnant of the Minamoto, grew more powerful
every day ; their cause was also espoused by many of the Fujiwara, by the priests
of Hieizan, and by the exiled Go Shirakawa. The first conflict took place in the
mountains of Nakasendo, between an army of the Taira and Minamoto no Yoshi-
naka, whose father had also been a victim of Kiyomori. The Taira were utterly
beaten in 1182, and Munemori fled from Kioto with the young mikado Antoku.
There the old Go Shirakawa greeted the conqueror upon his entry. Antoku was
declared to be deposed, and Go Toba was elected emperor in his place. He
appointed Yoshinaka to the post of shogun, so that this personage now became
leader of the opposition to the family of his cousin Yoritomo. Minamoto no Yori-
tomo sent his younger brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori against him ; they defeated
him in 1184 at Lake Biwa, and Yoshinaka committed suicide. Yoshitsune availed
himself of this advantage to resume the pursuit of Munemori. After a series of
<• nnbiits, all of which went against the Taira, a decisive naval battle was fought in
1185 at Dan-uo-ura, near Shimonoseki. The Taira made a most valiant resistance,
but were utterly defeated. The widow of Kiyomori drowned herself with the
THE ABDUCTION OF GO-SHIR AKAWA, FORMER EMPEROR
OF JAPAN, BY FUSIWARA NO NOBUYORI,
IN THE YEAR 1159.
Some of the illustrations to the book " Heidji-monogatari " (Tales of the Year Heidji)
have disappeared. The picture here reproduced illustrates the section " Sandj5den-Yakiuti "
(The Destruction of the Castle of SandjSden by Fire). On the 9th day of the 12th month
of the year Heidji (1159 A.D.) Fusiwara no Nobuyori, with 500 horsemen under the General
Minamoto no Yoshitomo, surprised the castle of Sandjoden, where the former Emperor, Go
Shirakawara, was living. The Emperor fled in great terror ; but Nobuyori, Yoshitomo,
Mitsuyasu, Mitsumoto, and Suesane brought him back by force in his chariot to the imperial
palace. Of the painter of this picture, the monk Keion, very little is known ; but it seems
certain that he was born not more than twenty years after the Heidji revolt.
(From the 14th number of the monthly periodical, " Kokkura " (The Flora of the Country),
published by Yamamoto.for the Kokkura-sha Society at Tokio, and translated into German by
Dr. Kitasato, of Berlin.)
As Dr. Ki asato explains, the disturbances of the Heidji were due to the following causes :
The Emperor Go Shirakawa, who had reigned since 1156 A. p., abdicated in 1158 in favour of
his little son, Nidjo (1159-65), retaining the power, however, as regent, until his death in 1192.
During this period, a political conflict sprang up between two Court officials, Shinsei and
Nobuyori, of the noble house of Fusiwara. Jealous of the preference shown by Go
Shirakawa for Shinsei, Nobuyori attacked the Emperor in his palace of Sandjoden, brought
him a prisoner to the imperial palace, and murdered his rival Shinsei. This revolt is known as
the " Heidji Rising." The reputed author of the " Heidji-monogatari" is Hamura Tokinaga,
who flourished in the 13th century.
'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 19
mikado Antoku, who was then five years old. Most of the Taira who did not fall
in the battle committed suicide or were killed in the pursuit. A few found refuge
in the remotest parts of Kyushu, where it is said that their descendants may to
this day be recognised. The utter ruin with which the Taira had once threatened
the Mmanioto was now dealt out to them by the enemy they had formerly
conquered.
In certain respects the wars of the Taira and Minamoto are analogous to the
wars of the Eoses in England ; the comparison can be extended to the colours
worn by the Japanese parties, the standards of the Minamoto being white and
those of the Taira red. The events of these wars form the subject of the most
famous Japanese novels Heike (Chinese for Taira, peace), Monogotari and Genge
(Chinese for Minamoto, source), Kouogatari, which are to-day the delight of young
and old in Japan.
F. THE MINAMOTO, THE HOJO, AND THE ASHIKAGA (1186-1573)
THE following four centuries of Japanese history are filled with indiscriminate
fighting. Law and order are non-existent, treachery and murder are of daily occur-
rence, and our contempt for the faithlessness of the nobles to the mikado, the
shogun, and the regent is increased by the numerous instances of the fidelity dis-
played by the lower orders toward their masters. Each individual is concerned
only with his own advantage and the easiest means of obtaining it. The one in-
spiring feature of the period is the stoical courage with which the conquered, who
as conquerors were merciless, met their death, — they fell upon their own swords,
after the manner of the ancient Romans.
At the outset of the rule of the Fujiwara in the eighth century the necessity
became apparent, probably owing to the growing effeminacy of certain classes of
the population, for the creation of a special military class (the Samurai). At an
earlier period every man was a soldier, and marched out when he received his
summons ; now this militia was replaced by a class of professional soldiers. In-
stances occur at an early period of the existence of body-guards of which the
military forces of the greater lords may have been composed ; these, however, are
purely exceptional cases. As in Anglo-Saxon England and in Europe at large
during the ninth and tenth centuries of our era, the necessities of the time obliged
the free peasants and often the petty nobles of Japan to place themselves under the
protection of a more powerful lord, and to give up their freedom in return for
the security which he could offer them. An additional piece of evidence for this
fact is the argument invariably adduced by the Japanese themselves during the
debates on the proposal to capitalise the incomes of the Samurai (1870-1880),
that this order of nobility had originated from the peasant class in the eighth cen-
tury and ought to revert to that condition. The peasant serfs, like those who
voluntarily sought the protection of a lord, owed military service to this lord and
not to the emperor ; eventually, in view of the unbroken continuance of war, both
parties, lord and peasant, found it to their advantage to draw a more definite line
of demarcation between the productive and the military classes.
Similar circumstances no doubt gave rise to the great fiefs. In the times when
might preceded right, the regent, the field-marshal, or whoever was in power1 for
the moment, either seized the property of a defeated enemy for himself or divided-
20 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
it among his adherents. At a later period, when an increased number had been able
to carve a kingdom for themselves out of the property which theoretically belonged
to the emperor, when the country was divided among great and small lords, actual
possession formed nine-tenths of the law, and often the whole of it ; whether the
possessor of land had been duly and formally invested with it was a matter of total
indifference. What the sword had won the sword alone could keep. So when
social conditions became more stereotyped at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, the whole of the country was in possession of greater or smaller lords, who
held their lands in theory from the mikado either directly, or mediately through
the shdgun. The theory became practice when, upon the restoration of the mikado's
power, the landed property and all the inhabitants of the kingdom were claimed
as imperial possessions by the government.
For the period from the victory of the Minamoto over the Taira until the re-
storation of the mikado in 1868, a period of almost seven centuries, two facts are of
primary importance for the internal development of Japan. First, that whereas
Kioto had hitherto been the social and political centre of the country, this centre
. of gravity was now transferred to the northeast, first to Kamakura, a foundation
of Yoritomo, and afterward to Yedo, founded by lyeyasu. The second fact is of
no less importance : during the greater portion of this period the actual power was
not exercised by the bearers of the different titles of office, the mikado, shoguu,
and regent, who were generally children, and sometimes babes in arms ; the
strings of government were pulled by relations and other personages behind the
scenes. Extremely rare are the cases in which the bearer of the title plays any-
thing but a passive pare, and that, too, at a time when there was certainly no lack
. of vigorous and energetic men in Japan.
(a) Yoritomo. — The victory of Dan-no-ura was followed by the outbreak of
serious dissensions within the Minamoto family, evoked by the jealousy of Yori-
tomo at the military success of his half-brother Yoshitsune ; shortly afterward
the latter was murdered by the order of Yoritomo. The personality of this most
attractive of all the Minamoto has become the nucleus of a cycle of legends ; some
of these represent him as fleeing to the Ainos and spending long years among them,
while others recognise in him the great Genghis Khan who made the Mongols the
greatest nation in Asia. The most probable story says that he committed harakiri,
after killing his wife and children, and that his head was brought to Kamakura, to
be shown to his brother as evidence of the execution of his orders. Yoritomo hiui-
.self was invested in 1192 with the title of Sei-i Tai Shoguii (" the great general
.subduing the barbarians"). He died in 1199. Upon his hereditary estates at
Kwanto he instituted a properly organised system of government, the " Bak' fu "
(" behind the curtain " which surrounds the tent of the field-marshal). This system
-corresponded in some respects with the military administration of the field-marshal ;
the incompetent provincial governors were replaced by capable subordinates of his
own. Under him Kamakura became a large and beautiful town, of which only a
pair of stately temples now remain, together with a large image of Buddha (the
Daibuz) and the simple sepulchral monument of its founder.
(6) Tlie Shadow SJioguns and the Hojo Family. — After the death of Yoritomo
his father-in-law, Hojo Tokimasa, together with his widow, Masago, acted as the
w>] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 21
guardians of Yori-iye, who was. then eighteen years of age; after a rule of four
years he was deposed in 1203, sent into exile, and murdered a year later. He was
succeeded by Sanetomo, a brother eleven years. of age, who was murdered in 1219
by his . nephew Kokio, the son of Yori-iye. The main branch of the family of
Yoritomo thus became extinct, and power remained in the hands of the Hojo
family. They did not themselves assume the title of shogun, but contented them-
selves with that of shikken (regents) of Kamakura, preferring to appoint children
of the Fujiwara family, or of the imperial house, to the position of shogun, and
ruling under their names. Of the eight shoguns included in the period 1220-1338
six were between three and sixteen years of age at the time of their appointment;
all were deposed, and two .are known to have been; murdered. In the family of
the regents affairs were no better; eight rulers succeeded one another in the years
1205-1326, and three or four in the short space between 1326 and 1333. The
family then became extinct. ;
The assumption of the power by the Hojos caused much dissatisfaction in Kioto.
The three ex-mikados, Go Toba and his sons Tsuchi and Juntoku, together with
the son of the latter, Chukyo tenno, who had been ruling from 1222, offered resist-
ance but were overpowered; the three ex-mikados were sent into exile and there
thrown into prison, while the reigning mikado was deposed. The first of the Hojo
shikken or their councillors were men of high capacity. Yoshitoki (1205-1224)
and Yasutoki (1225-1242) did their utmost to maintain peace throughout the
country, but were forced to struggle against the parties in Kioto and the Buddhist
priests, especially in Yamato, who stirred up the population against them. Tsune-
toki ruled for only three years (1243-1246), and abdicated in favour of his younger
brother Tokiyori (1246-1256). He also gave proof of much energy and made
special efforts to improve the administration of justice. The greatest services to
Japan were, however, those of Tokimune (1257—1284). After his conquest of
China, Kublai Khan sent a letter by the Koreans .to the mikado Go Uda (1275-
1287), demanding the recognition of his supremacy and the payment of, tribute
from Japan. Tokimune scornfully rejected the demand. The. Chinese ruler con-
tinued his diplomatic efforts, but with no greater success. The Mongols then got
possession of the islands of Tsushima and Ikishima,, making Korea their base of
operations, and attempted in 1275 to establish themselves in Kyushu but were
driven back. In the year 1279 Chinese ambassadors again arrived at Nagasaki
with demands for the submission of the country, but were beheaded at the orders
of the government at Kamakura. Finally, in 1281 a powerful Mongol fleet ap-
peared off the coasts of Kyushu. The Japanese annals are full of stories con-
cerning individual deeds of valour. , The truth appears to be that this fleet of
between three and four thousand sail carrying a hundred thousand warriors,
including ten thousand Koreans, was almost entirely destroyed by a typhoon,
and the Japanese then made an end, without loss to themselves, of such of the
crews as had been saved.
This success and the absolute power which they exercised in the kingdom
tempted the Hojos to disregard the most ordinary dictates of prudence and common
sense. Hitherto they had ruled with an iron hand, had deposed and appointed
rnikados and shoguns at their pleasure ; but their measures had been actuated
by desire for the national welfare ; now, however, they and their officials began
a course of appalling oppression of the lower classes, in order to provide them-
22 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
selves with the means for luxury and dissipation. Dissatisfaction and irritation
increased, until at last in 1330 the mikado, Go Daigo, the fifth who had ruled since
1287 and himself a nominee of the Hojos, raised the standard of revolt. One of
his sons, Moriyoshi, had previously attempted in 1327 to shake off the yoke which
lay heavy upon the imperial house and the country, but his plan had been dis-
covered and he was himself sent into a monastery. Upon this occasion his father
was equally unfortunate ; he was conquered, deposed, and sent into exile. Kusu-
noke Masahige", who had revolted in Kawazi, was also defeated, but escaped
capture.
The country now appeared to be bound more than ever firmly in its chains ; but
salvation was to come from the family of the Minamoto. Two grandsons of Miiia-
moto Yori-iye, the great-grandfather of Yoritomo (known to Japanese history as
Hachiman taro, that is, eldest son of the war god), had founded two families in
Nitta and Ashikaga, who now revolted against the Ho jo. Nitta Yoshisada, who
had formerly been in the service of the regents, allied himself with Moriyoshi (now
Otonomiya) in 1333, collected his adherents and those of his family, and made a
forced march upon Kamakura, before which he appeared on the fourteenth day of
his revolt. Takatoki, who had himself resigned the regency in 1326, was then con-
duct ing the government for the last of the child regents. He was completely
taken by surprise. The castle of Kamakura was captured after a short resistance.
Takatoki and a large number of his adherents committed suicide, while the re-
mainder were slain by the conquerors -or peasants who joined in the revolt. At
the same time Ashikaga Takauji, in alliance with Kusunoki, had broken the power
of the Hojos in Kioto. There also all the adherents of the Hojo were slaughtered
wherever they could be caught. Even at the present day in Japan the memory
of the Hojos is regarded with hatred and abhorrence.
(c) The Askikaga. — Upon the success of his friends the ex-mikado Go Daigo
returned from exile and again ascended the throne in 1334. He appointed his son
Moriyoshi as shogun of Kamakura, and rewarded Ashikaga Takauji with Hitachi,
Musashi, and Shimosa ; Kusunoki Masahige' was rewarded with Setsu and Kawazi ;
while Nitta Yoshisada received Kozuke and Arima ; many others receiving smaller
possessions. Peace and unity were not, however, to endure for long. Go Daigo in
Kioto and Moriyoshi in Kamakura led a life of debauchery that shocked even the
carelessness of that age. A former Buddhist priest, under the pretext of seeking
for the adherents of the Hojos, overran Kwanto, robbing and murdering at the head
of a mob of scoundrels, until he was crucified by the orders of Takauji. Mori-
yoshi availed himself of the opportunity to make clamorous complaints to his
father, until at last a younger brother of Takauji, Todoyoshi, revolted and pro-
claimed a new shdgun. At first the two brothers fought upon different sides, but
ultimately they joined forces, marched together upon Kamakura, and expelled
Moriyoshi. Takauji now declared himself shogun. Go Daigo summoned his ad-
herents, including Nitta Yoshisada, for war against the pretender. Nitta, however,
after obtaining some initial success, was defeated at the pass of Hakoue near Take-
nosh'ta. Takauji now marched upon Kioto, and Go Daigo fled, bearing the insignia
of empire to the fortified temple of Miidera on the Hieizan, but was ultimately
driven out from thence. Meanwhile, however, his adherents had collected and
drove Takauji out of Kioto and Miidera, but were ultimately defeated with crush-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 23
ing loss at Minatogowa, near Hiogo. Kusunoki Masahige", the commander of the
mikado's troops, also fell in the battle. Go Daigo fled to Miidera once more, and
in 1337 Takauji appointed a younger son of Go Fushimi (1299-1301) as mikado
under the name of Komiyo tenno. Ultimately the conflicting parties came to an
agreement upon the terms that the position of mikado should be occupied for alter-
nating periods of ten years by the descendants of Go Daigo and Go Fushimi. Go
Daigo temporarily restored the insignia of empire, and Komiyo was crowned.
Takauji became grand shogun and consequently resided in Kioto, while his son
Yosiuiri remained in Kamakura as shogun. Under the latter a shikken at Kioto
dealt with the affairs of the western provinces, while a kwanrei (governor) ruled
over the eastern provinces from Kamakura. However, the peace between the two
parties was not destined to be permanent. In the same year (1337) Go Daigo
declared himself the only legal mikado, and proclaimed his opponent illegitimate,
collecting round him his adherents, the chief of which were Kusunoki Masayuki,
the son of Masahige*, and Nitta Yoshisada.
Henceforward until the end of the century two mikados ruled in Japan in the
south and the north, the former of whom was considered as the legal ruler, while
the latter possessed the real power. Meanwhile the supporters of the southern
mikado were destroyed one after the other, and in 1392 a convention was arranged
providing the same conditions as the agreement of 1337. Go Kameyama tenno, the
second of the southern emperors, who had been nominal ruler since 1366, resigned,
and surrendered the insignia of the empire to his opponent in the north.
Takauji died in 1358, at the age of fifty-three. He was succeeded by his son
Yoshimori, who abdicated in 1367 ; his grandson Yoshimitsu, who also abdicated in
1393, lived till 1409, and exerted a highly beneficial influence upon the govern-
ment. Under him the empire enjoyed for a short space the peace of which it was
greatly in need. Soon, however, dissension broke out again among the different
families who had gained power and prestige in the wars of the last century. The
Hosokawa, Takeda, Uyesugi, Tokuguwa, Ota, and Odawara in the north and centre
of the country, the Mori in the west, the Satsuma, Hisen, and Bungo, in Kyushu,
were continually at war with one another and with other neighbours. The Ashi-
kaga were powerless to restore peace and order until the last of them, Yoshiaki, was
deposed in 1573 by Ota Nobunaga. The country was in a terrible condition ; on
every side were to be seen devastated fields and the ruins of formerly flourishing
towns and villages. Kioto itself was a heap of ruins ; all who could leave the
capital had fled long since to take refuge in the camp of one of the great territorial
lords. The prestige of the mikado had sunk so low that in 1500 the body of Go
Tsuchi stood for forty days at the gates of the castle because the money for the
funeral expenses was not forthcoming. The peasant class had been almost en-
tirely exterminated ; every peasant who had the strength had become a soldier or
had joined one of the piratical hordes which raided the coasts of China, Korea,
and Japan. The condition of the country may be compared with that of Germany
during the Thirty Years' War, and even as the German princes of that time begged
support from foreign countries, France, Spain, and Sweden, so the shogun Yoshi-
mochi at the beginning of the fifteenth century requested the emperor Yung lo of
the Chinese Ming dynasty to grant him the title of " King of Japan," and obtained
his request in return for the yearly payment of a thousand ounces of gold.
24 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
G. CHRISTIANITY AND FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN JAPAN (1543 TO 1624)
(a) History of the Relations between Japan and Christianity. — It was at the
close of the gloomy Ashikaga period that Europeans first came in contact with
the Japanese. The actual date, which lies between 1530 and 1545, has not been
established, and the names of the first Europeans to visit the country are equally
doubtful The date usually adopted is 1543. If Eernand Mendez Pinto observed
any chronological sequence in the narrative of his adventures (though he is known
as the " father of lies," his story is none the less deserving of serious historical
examination), he at any rate can no longer claim the honour of being one of the
first three foreigners to enter Japan. In any case, these early visitors, whatever
their names may have been, belonged to that class of adventurers who then har-
assed the seas and coasts of Eastern Asia, working either on their own account or
in the company of the Chinese freebooters. Shortly after the discovery of Japan,
and the announcement of a good opening for trade existing in that country, a mucli
stronger influx of foreigners must have taken place.
The trader was followed by the missionary. In 1549 Francis Xavier arrived at
Kagoshima ; there he met with a hostile reception, as the prince (or king, as he is
termed in the chronicles) of Satsuma was enraged at the fact that the Portuguese
ships had failed to appear off his coasts during the previous year ; Xavier therefore
proceeded to Nagato and Bungo, and from thence to Kioto, where he met with
equally little success on account of the prevailing disturbances. In 1551 he left
Japan with the intention of returning to India to enlist missionaries for service in
Japan, but died during the voyage. However, the new field was not long without
labourers. As early as 1564 seven churches and chapels existed in the suburbs-
of Kioto, and a number of smaller Christian communities were established in the
southwest of Japan, especially upon the island of Kyushu. In 1581 there were
more than two hundred churches in Japan, and the number of the native Christians
had risen to one hundred and fifty thousand. The conversion of the population
continued peacefully until the death of the shogun Nobunaga in the following
year ; he had openly favoured the Christians, possibly because he hoped to find
in them a counter-influence to the Buddhist priesthood, which was hostile to-
himself. In the year 1583 the Christian princes of Bungo, Arima, and Omura
in the island of Kyushu, sent an embassy, consisting of four nobles, to declare
their subjection to Rome. The ambassadors were received by Pope Sixtus V and
King Philip II, and returned to Japan in 1591, bringing seventeen Jesuit mis-
sionaries with them.
However, in the year 1587 the first clouds began to gather above the heads of
the foreign missionaries ; a decree of banishment against them was issued, probably
inspired by the desire of the prime minister Taikosama to secure the support of
the Buddhists in his struggle for the supremacy of the country. The Jesuits, who-
in the Far East have always understood how to avert the dangers that threatened
them and their work, by an outward show of submission closed their churches and
ceased their public preaching ; the process of conversion, however, continued with-
out interruption or disturbance, and was attended with such success that during the
three years succeeding this edict thirty thousand Japanese were baptized. Taiko-
sama (Hideyoshi) seemed at first to be satisfied with this formal submission to his-
will ; he may also have feared that the exercise of greater severity would result in
25
the loss of the advantage which accrued to him from the foreign trade, or would
induce the Christian princes of Kyushu to abandon his cause. But further meas-
ures were necessitated by the appearance of the Spanish mendicant friars, who
came over in great numbers from the Philippines and defied his orders by preaching
and wearing their priestly robes in public. The decree of banishment was revived ;
some churches, and the houses belonging to the missionaries, were destroyed, and
finally, in 1596, six Franciscan monks, three Jesuits, and seventeen Japanese
Christians were crucified at Nagasaki.
Even now, however, the prudent behaviour of the Jesuits seemed to have obvi-
ated any immediate danger. Upon the death of Taikosama, lyeyasu, the most
powerful of the leaders who were struggling for the supremacy seemed inclined to
favour the missionaries ; he even attempted to use the Spanish monks as a means
of initiating commercial relations between the Philippines and his own domain of
Kwanto (the district near Yedo). Soon, however, he found himself obliged to
oppose the foreign missionaries and the native Christians. For this change of
policy the latter had only themselves to blame. The Spanish mendicant friars con-
tinued to defy the orders of the government and to inspire their converts with a re-
fractory spirit ; and the insubordination displayed by the native Christians in many
places occasioned serious forebodings in the government. During the period when
the work of conversion was at its height, cruel persecutions of the Buddhists had
been instituted in many of the districts governed by Christian princes, and in par-
ticular in Kyushu. If these were not instigated by the missionaries, they were at
any rate countenanced by them, as is plain from their narratives. For example, in
Oniura, after the conversion of the prince in 1562, troops were sent out to destroy
all the temples and images in the district. In Amakusa, in 1577, the prince offered
his subjects the choice between conversion or exile, and in many other places any
one who hesitated to embrace the new religion was driven forth from house and
home, no matter what his position. The victory of Taikosama and lyeyasu over
the south, where their chief opponents were settled, was followed by a fresh distri-
bution of the principalities among new rulers. The heathen princes then began to-
persecute their Christian subjects, as their predecessors had persecuted the heathen.
At this moment a refractory spirit of resistance was manifested by the peasant
population, — a spirit unprecedented among the peasant class of Japan. A natural
result was the issue of further edicts against missionaries and Christians, and, in.
short, against all foreigners. In the year 1606 Christianity was prohibited, and
was declared in 1613 to be a danger to the constitution, perhaps in consequence of
a conspiracy thought to have been discovered in 1611 in the gold mines of the
island of Sado, where thousands of native Christians had been transported to
undergo convict labour. It was resolved to destroy all the churches and expel
all the missionaries, and the decision was carried into effect. In the year 1614
twenty-two Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustine monks, one hundred and seven-
teen Jesuits, and several hundred Japanese priests and catechists were forcibly
placed on board three junks and sent out of the country, so that the six hundred
thousand native Christians of Japan (two million, according to Japanese histo-
rians) were thus at one blow deprived of their spiritual pastors. Their position
became even more serious after the battle of Sekigahara, when lyeyasu defeated
Hideyori, the son of Taikosama, as in that battle the Christian princes had been,
upon the losing side.
26 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
The main reason which drove the Japanese government to severer measures
is to be found in the continual attempts of foreign priests to return into the
country by stealth. Hidetada, the son of lyeyasu, who had succeeded him in 1616
(or 1615), issued a decree in 1617 that all foreign priests found in Japan should
be put to death, a penalty to which they had been previously subjected upon one
occasion only (1596). In the year 1617 foreign trade was limited to Hirado and
Nagasaki; in 1621 the Japanese were prohibited from leaving their country, and
in 1624 all strangers, with the exception of the Dutch and Chinese, were sen-
tenced to expulsion, though the latter edict was not fully carried out until fifteen
years later. Meanwhile the persecution against the native Christians continued.
Thousands were crucified, burnt, drowned, or otherwise martyred, though, as was
to appear more than two hundreds years later, Christianity was never entirely
exterminated by this means.
In December, 1637, a revolt broke out in Kyushu, which, though but indirectly
connected with the Christian movement, resulted in a renewal of the persecution
with increased severity. The revolt began with a rising of the peasants of Arima,
who had been driven to despair by the repeated imposition of fresh taxation and
by other oppressive measures ; they were soon joined by all the Christians who
remained in the neighbourhood. According to the Dutch narratives written at the
time, the rebels wore linen clothes, shaved their heads, and destroyed the heathen
temples, and had chosen Sant Jago as their war-cry. After a vain attempt to
storm the castle of the daimyo (prince) of Amakusa, they established themselves
in the peninsula of Shirnabara, and there offered a heroic defence, both against the
forces of their overlords, the princes of Arima and Amakusa, and against the troops
of the government, until they succumbed to superior numbers after a desperate
struggle on April 16 and 17, 1638. Seventeen thousand heads are said to have
been exposed as tokens of victory, and probably very few escaped of the thirty-
five thousand men who are said to have taken part in the revolt. On April 25
the overseers of the Portuguese factories were imprisoned, as they were considered
to blame for the revolt. On August 22 the Portuguese galleys were forbidden to
approach Japan under pain of death, and on September 2 the last Portuguese were
banished from the country, and took with them their overseers, who had remained
in imprisonment up to that time. On May 11, 1741, the Dutch, the only Europeans
remaining in Japan, were ordered to remove their settlement to Nagasaki, whither
the Chinese were also sent. Thus for the moment the first period of contact
between Japan and European Christianity came to an end ; it had lasted for nearly
a century.
(b) Reasons for the Rapidity of the Establishment and the Fall of Christianity
in Japan. — The conditions of Japanese life during the second half of the six-
teenth century and the first fifteen years of the seventeenth century are the best
explanation of the rapidity with which the pioneers of religion and trade suc-
ceeded in gaining a footing in the country. The land was torn by dissension and
war, which had utterly destroyed the economic prosperity of the middle and lower
classes of the population. From the two native religions no consolation could be
derived. Shintoism had become a mere mythology, and in any case had never
taken hold upon the sympathies of the people; Buddhism had lost its vitality,
and had replaced it by the doctrine that prayer and priests alone could provide
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 2f
help and salvation from the dangers which threatened the soul in its wanderings
after death. Moreover the priests were far too busily concerned with the political
questions of the day to bestow attention and sympathy on the sufferings of the
lower classes, and hence the Christian missionaries found numerous converts from
the very outset ; to the poor and miserable they promised immediately upon their
death the joys of that paradise of which the Buddhists only held out a prospect
after long trials and vicissitudes. By the splendour of its services, by its numer-
ous and mystic ceremonies, in which the converted were themselves allowed to
take a part, Christianity defeated its adversaries on their own ground.
A material reason for the first success was also the fact that the introduction
of Christianity was entrusted to the Jesuits ; the mendicant orders are largely to
blame for the ultimate collapse of the work of conversion. Pope Gregory XIII, in
a bull of January 28, 1585, gave the Jesuits the exclusive right of sending out
missionaries to Japan. On December 12, 1600, Clement VIII extended this per-
mission to include the mendicant orders, upon the condition that they should
take ship in Portugal and go to Japan by way of Goa. On June 11, 1608, Pope
Paul V extended this permission to mendicants who should go to Japan by way
of the Philippines. In most cases the members of the mendicant orders had not
waited for the pope to grant them the permission which they had requested ; they
went to Japan without, although by so doing they incurred the greater excommu-
nication (excommunicatio major ipso facto incurrenda). This proceeding gave rise
to unseemly quarrels among the missionaries themselves, and further contributed
to undermine their prestige in the eyes of the unfriendly Japanese. Moreover, the
procedure of the mendicant orders during their work of conversion in Japan
differed greatly from that followed by the Jesuits. The latter did their best to-
accommodate themselves to the views, wishes, and orders of the Japanese authori-
ties, whereas the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustines continually defied the
authorities and declined to make any such sacrifice of the external or the non-
essential as might have enabled them to attain their object.
At the same period political dissensions broke out between the Portuguese and
the Spaniards, which were rather increased than lessened by the union of the two
kingdoms (1580). Since the date of the first entry of the Portuguese into Japan
the power of Portugal and the prestige of her emissaries had steadily declined ; the
revolt of the Spanish Netherlands, the wars between England and Holland, and
the downfall of the Spanish power under Philip II and Philip III, enabled the
Japanese authorities to attempt during the seventeenth century what they could
not have dared in the sixteenth. Moreover, the behaviour of the foreign merchants
and mariners was not calculated to arouse the respect or the good-will of the
Japanese. The foreign trade certainly brought a great increase of wealth to the
princes of the country, but this again was a continual source of jealousy and of
friction between them, as each was anxious to secure the lion's share for himself,
and to use it for the purpose of gaining some advantage over his neighbours.
After a strong central government the shogunate of lyeyasu had been set up ; this
again naturally attempted to secure control of the trade, and to exclude those who
had previously been its rivals and were now its subjects. The different nationalities
who traded with Japan, the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, and English, damaged
their reputation by continually accusing and slandering one another to the Japanese,
and by lodging complaints with them concerning goods and ships of which they
28 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
had deprived one another. The continual quarrels between the foreigners in
Japan, and the condescension with which they treated the natives, are sufficient
explanation of the dislike which the proud Japanese conceived for them in the
course of a few years.
An additional and a justifiable reason for dissatisfaction was the slave trade
carried on by all the foreigners in Japan, and particularly by the Portuguese.
Civil war, the expedition against Korea, and the growing poverty of the lower
classes had brought so many slaves into the market, that, as Bishop Cerqueira
relates, even the Malay and negro servants of tli2 Portuguese traders were able to
buy Japanese or Korean slaves upon their own account, with the object of after-
ward selling them in Macao. Both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Macao
(Bishop Cerqueira in 1598 and his predecessors) had made vain attempts to
suppress this trade in human flesh, which was undoubtedly the strongest ground
of complaint possessed by the Japanese; in 1621 the authorities of Japan forbade
the export of hired or bought natives without special permission, and prohibited it
at a later period under the severest penalties.
(<?) The Mode of Procedure against the Foreigners adopted by the Japanese. —
The unprecedented enthusiasm of the Japanese converts became a serious anxiety
to the rulers of the country, and inclined them to suspect some political object
behind the religious zeal of the missionaries ; hence their determination to put
an end to foreign trade by the destruction of Christianity was received with unani-
mous approval by the whole country. Moreover, the government had taken
special care to lower the prestige of the foreigners in the eyes of the population,
and to deprive them of their influence by a series of regulations extending over
a number of years. In 1635 the Portuguese were forbidden to walk under an
umbrella carried by a Japanese servant, or to give alms beyond a minimum sum.
At the same time they were ordered to take off their shoes upon entering the
council chamber ; and in that year all of them, except the overseers, were for-
bidden to carry arms, and were obliged to dismiss their old servants and to take
new ones. The Dutch were forbidden to employ Japanese servants for the future,
except within their houses. In 1638 a Dutch ship-captain was beheaded. In
1639 all Japanese women living with Dutch or English were banished, and Jap-
anese women were forbidden to contract marriages with the Dutch. In 1640 a
steward was executed for adultery with a Japanese woman. Two white rabbits.
found on a ship called the " Gracht " did not appear upon the list of living animals-
which had to be provided, and the captain was consequently deprived of his office.
The Dutch factories in Hirado were searched for ecclesiastical articles, and the
Dutch were ordered to pull down all buildings which bore a date upon their walls.
The imperial decree ran as follows : " His Imperial Majesty [that is, the shogun)
has reliable information that you are Christians, even as the Portuguese. You
celebrate Sunday, you write the date Anno Domini on the roofs and gables of
your houses, you have the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed,
the Cup and the Breaking of Bread, the Bible, the Testament, Moses and the
Prophets and the Apostles, — in short, everything. The main points of resem-
blance are there, and the differences between you seem to us insignificant. That
you were Christians we have known long since, but we thought that yours was
another Christ. Therefore his Majesty gives you to know through me," etc. In
'13'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 29
1641 the decree was issued that the Dutch were no longer to inter their dead,
but to bury them at sea four or five miles away from the coast. This decree was
executed for the first time on August 29, "because a Christian corpse is not
worthy of burial in the earth." In the next year the Dutch cemetery in Hirado
was destroyed. The Dutch and the Chinese were indeed allowed to remain in
Nagasaki ; but this permission was given because they were the sole medium for
the importation of certain necessary goods, and had also made themselves useful
by providing timely information of the proposals that other powers might make
against Japan. In other respects the members of both nations were treated little
better than prisoners.
(ci) The Situation since the Reopening of Japan to Foreign Nations. — When
Japan was opened to foreign trade during the years 1854 to 1858, the Catholic
missionaries, who once again had followed in the footsteps of the trader, found
remnants of a former Christian community existing in Nagasaki in the village of
Urakami, though it was thought that Christianity had long been exterminated as
a result of cruel and continued persecution. The attention of the Japanese gov-
ernment was drawn to this case by the imprudent action of the missionaries. In
the year 1867 seventy-eight of these native Christians were imprisoned, and the
attempt was made to induce them to abjure their faith by threats. Owing to the
efforts of foreign representatives, especially those of the French ambassador, M.
.Roches, the prisoners were set at liberty upon the promise that the missionaries
would abstain from any attempt at proselytising outside the settlement. Hardly,
however, had the mikado begun the reconstituted government of 1868 than the
persecution of these people and their coreligionists was resumed, and the prohibi-
tions against this evil Christian sect were again enforced. More than four thou-
sand native Christians were imprisoned, and, notwithstanding all the efforts of the
foreign representatives, were sent in small bodies to hard labour upon the estates
of different territorial princes. It was not until 1873 that it became possible to
procure their liberation, and the removal of the prohibitions issued against Chris-
tianity. From that date missionaries have been allowed a free hand within those
limits imposed upon all foreigners. The chief obstacle, however, to their efforts
is the strongly developed national feeling of the Japanese ; besides this, there is
undoubtedly a widespread dislike of the foreign missionaries, who are often con-
sidered merely as the political agents of the country which sent them out. In
particular, Japanese self-consciousness, even under the form of new Shintoism, has
found a useful lever in the elevation by the missionaries of God, Jesus, the pope,
the Church, and the Bible above the mikado. In any case, this " Japanese self-
concentration," however modified by individual feelings and opinions, has hitherto
proved the greatest obstacle to the spread of Christianity ; the various successful
attempts even of the Japanese Christians to break away from the influence of
foreign missionaries, and from connection with them, are to be ascribed to this
source. If there is any hope for the Christianising of Japan, the movement must
first be founded upon a Japanese basis (cf. below, p. 57).
H. THE PERIOD OF THE PARVENUS (1573-1600)
(a) Nolunaga. — The fall of the Ashikaga family was brought about by the
.action of its own adherent, Ota Nobunaga (p. 11). This youth was descended from
30 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
a grandson of Taira no Kiyomori, who had been secretly left in charge of the magis-
trate of the village of Tsuda by his mother when in flight before the soldiers of the
Minamoto ; shortly afterward the magistrate handed him over to a Shinto priest
from Ota, living in Echizen, who adopted him as his son. The boy grew up, entered
the profession of his foster father, and founded a family from which in 1533, nearly
four hundred years later, Nobunaga was born. The immediate ancestors of the
latter had taken an active share in the disturbances of the period ; his father, Ota
Nobuhide, who died in 1549, bequeathed to him possessions of considerable impor-
tance. The son entered the service of the Ashikaga, and succeeded in adding to his
hereditary property, until he found himself in possession of six provinces and the
capital of the country. Among his servants were included Kinoshita Hideyoshi
and Tokugawa lyeyasu (Minamoto), two men who were to play a great part in the
future history of Japan. In 1574 Nobunaga quarrelled with the Ashikaga, marched
against them, and defeated the shogun Yoshiaki, whom he captured and deposed.
This event ended the dynasty of the Ashikaga. As he was not himself descended
from the Minamoto, he could not be shogun. and therefore governed under the title
of naidaijin. Of his struggles against the Buddhist monks and the preference
which he showed to the Christians we have already spoken (p. 24). His rule
lasted but a short period (1574-1582), too short to enable him to restore peace to
his country. The battles against the powerful princes in the west of Hondo and
in Kyushu continued uninterruptedly, and while Hideyoshi was leading the greater
portion of the troops of his master against Mori in the west, Nobunaga fell a victim
to treachery. He had insulted Akeshi Mitsuhide, one of his generals ; this leader,
who had been despatched with the remainder of the troops upon another expedi-
tion, suddenly halted under the gates of Kioto, invited his soldiers to revolt,
entered the town with them, and surrounded the temple of Honnoji in which
Nobunaga had established himself. Surprised by the appearance of so many
soldiers, Nobunaga opened a window in order to inform himself of the state of
affairs ; an arrow struck him in the arm, and seeing that his cause was lost he com-
mitted suicide after commanding the women of his company to flee and setting the
temple on fire. The traitor assumed the title of shogun, but twelve days later was
defeated by Hideyoshi, who had hurried to the spot, and slain while in flight.
(J) Hideyoslii. — Hideyoshi was the son of a peasant, and was born in 1536 at
Nakamura in Owari At an early age he enlisted in the service of Nobunaga,
under the name of Kinoshita Tokichiro. Here he quickly gave proof of bravery
and military skill, and eventually became the most capable and trustworthy gen-
eral of Nobunaga. At the time of the attack upon the latter he was opposing the
troops of Mori in company with Nobunaga's son, Nobutaka ; with him he quickly
came to an agreement, and was thus enabled to turn his steps to Kioto with the
success we have already described. Of the three sons of his former master, one
was already dead, leaving behind him a son, who nominally continued his grand-
father's rule from 1582 to 1586 under the name of Samboshi. The second son was
now with lyeyasu, who was pledged to prevent any outbreak on his part. The third
son, Nobutaka, entered into alliance with a brother-in-law of his father, by name
Shibata, who was in possession of Echizen, but was unable to make head against
Hideyoshi. He was defeated, and his ally was also overpowered in Echizen by the
pursuing enemy. The narrative of the death of Shibata is one of the most impress
•S'&S61'1] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 31
sive incidents among the many moving events of Japanese history. Besieged in
his castle at Fukui with no hope of relief, Shibata resolved to die. He invited all
his friends and adherents to a feast, at the conclusion of which he informed his
wife, the sister of Nobunaga, of his determination, and gave her permission to
leave the castle and save her life. The proud woman, however, declined to avail
herself of the opportunity, and demanded to be allowed to share her husband's
fate. Shibata and his comrades then slew their wives and children, who thanked
them that they had thus been privileged to die with them, and then committed
hara-kiri. All were buried in the ruins of the castle, which they had previously
set on fire.
Hideyoshi succeeded in restoring peace and order to the country, though at the
price of a severe struggle. lyeyasu was ruling in Kwanto, with which he had been
invested by Hideyoshi, and is said to have built himself a capital in Yedo on the
advice of Hideyoshi. Possibly the political recollections and sympathies of the
latter made it, in his opinion, far more desirable to have the powerful Minamoto,
who had been subdued only at the cost of a long struggle, resident in Odawara, the
headquarters of the shoguns subsequent to the destruction of Kamakura. Between
lyeyasu and Hideyoshi there existed a general understanding, which was, how-
ever, modified by their mutual suspicion. The former, for instance, declined to go
to Kioto to have an audience of the mikado until Hideyoshi, who was staying in
the town, had handed over his mother as a hostage. The most important prince
in the west, Mori of Nagato (Choshiu), had also made submission to Hideyoshi ;
and the most powerful prince in Kyushu, Shimazu of Satsuma, who had made him-
self almost absolute master of the island after long struggles with Eiuzogi of Hizen
and Otomo of Bungo, was utterly defeated after a campaign of many vicissitudes, in
which Hideyoshi himself was ultimately obliged to assume the command (1586 to
1587). Why Hideyoshi did not entirely destroy this most powerful and restless of
his opponents is a doubtful point. He allowed the son of the conquered man, who
was forced to abdicate and to accompany the victor to Kioto as a hostage, to remain
in possession of his father's territory, alleging as a reason for this clemency that
he did not wish to exterminate their ancient family. This, however, seems an
extremely unlikely motive in the case of so practical a politician as Hideyoshi. It
is more probable that he hoped by the exercise of kindness to gain the gratitude of
the prince of Satsuma and of his father, and then to use them as a counterpoise to
the other princes of the south and west.
As soon as peace was restored throughout the kingdom, Hideyoshi proceeded to
attempt the great ambition of his life, which he is said to have entertained from
early youth, — the conquest of Korea and China. In 1582 he had demanded of
the king of Korea the tribute which had formerly been paid to Japan. At a later
period he had required that Korea should form his first line of defence in his war
against China, where the Ming dynasty was in power. Upon the rejection of these
demands, he sent an army of nearly two hundred thousand men against Korea in
the spring of 1592. His first successes were as rapid as they were sweeping.
Eighteen days after his landing at Fusan, Seoul fell into the hands of the Japanese.
The army speedily advanced to the Tai-dong-gang and overpowered the town of
Phyeng-yang, situated on the northern bank of that stream. At this point, how-
ever, his advance was checked partly by the difficulty of obtaining supplies, but
chiefly owing to the fact that the Japanese fleet which was to cover his further
32 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter -I
advance had been defeated by the Koreans. Shortly afterward the Chinese forces
appeared, which the Koreans had begged might be sent to their help. The plans
of the Chinese were also favoured by the jealousy existing among the Japanese
generals, one of whom, the Christian Konishi Yukinaga, was at the head of a
column formed entirely of Christians, while the other, Kato Kiyomassa, was a
Buddhist and hostile to the Christians. Almost a year after the capture of Seoul,
the Japanese were obliged to evacuate the town, which was not re-entered by a
Japanese force for another three hundred years (1894).
Military operations and negotiations between Kioto and Peking occupied the
period ending with the year 1596. Upon the failure of the negotiations, Hideyoshi
sent additional reinforcements to China in the year 1597, while the Chinese also
sent out another army which advanced far beyond Seoul. Fortune at first favoured
the Japanese. In October they had again advanced nearly to the walls of Seoul ;
but a second victory of the united Chino-Korean fleet and a threatening advance
of the Chinese again obliged them to retreat, in the course of which operation they
utterly devastated the country through which they passed. The Chinese pursued
their retreating enemy to Urusan, where the beaten Japanese army took refuge.
The Chinese made vain attempts to capture the fortress until the 13th of February,
1598, when a Japanese division relieved their besieged compatriots. With that
event the great war ended. A few unimportant skirmishes followed, but Hide-
yoshi, who died on the 8th September, 1598, recalled the expedition upon his
deathbed. The only outward token of success was the Mimizuka (the hill of ears),
a monument erected near Kioto, under which the noses and ears of 185,738 slaugh-
tered Koreans and of 29,014 Chinese are said to have been buried.
Whether Hideyoshi was actuated solely by the motives by which he declared
himself induced to attack Korea, or whether he was also attracted by the possibility
of providing occupation for the disorderly elements in the country, and weakening
the military power of the Christians, is a question which must remain undecided.
During his reign numerous prohibitions were issued against Christian teachers
and proselytes, but at the same time he continued the policy of Nobunaga against
the Buddhist monks and destroyed their monastery of Kumano among others. He
is certainly one of the best known figures in Japanese history. Even at the present
day he is an object of general reverence to all classes of the population, and no
doubt his Korean expedition largely contributed to increase his reputation. But
his government was a period of prosperity for the country in other respects. Acting
in the name of the emperor, he gave full support to law and justice, and in many
branches of the administration he not only established order, but effected great
improvements by new laws and regulations. We may presume that the attempt
of his successor lyeyasu to reduce the country definitely to peace and order would
have proved fruitless without his preliminary labours. It is customary at the
present day to utter reproaches against the dynasty of the Minamoto shoguns, but
at the same time we must not forget that they gave the country more than t\v<>
hundred and fifty years of peace after centuries of war and consequent disruption.
Hideyoshi appears in Japanese history under different names. We have already
mentioned '(p. 30) that under which he first entered the service of Nobunaga.
While a general he was known by the name of Hashima, and afterward the
mikado conferred upon him the name of Toyotomi. He is, however, best known
as Taikosama, the title usually assumed bv thekwanibakus upon laying down their
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 33
office. He could not hold the title of shogun, as he did not belong to the Mina-
moto family, who for nearly four hundred years had been the exclusive possessors
of this dignity. However, at an advanced age he procured his adoption by one of
the Kuge's belonging to the Fujiwara family, and was thus able to take the position
of kwambaku (prime minister). Like other great men, he was known by a number
of nicknames, such, for instance, as Momen Tokichi, that is, cotton-wool Tokichi,
as he was useful for every purpose, like cotton wool. After he had obtained the
dignity of kwambaku he was known as Saru kwanja, the crowned ape, on account
of his ugliness. Notwithstanding his high position and the great honour in which
his name is held, his burial place in Kioto is unknown.
(c) The Victory of the East (lyeyasu.) — According to the Japanese custom,
Hideyoshi resigned the post of kwambaku in 1591 in favour of his son, but
continued to exercise the actual power. Before his death he married his son,
who was six years old (or his adopted nephew ?), Hideyori, to a granddaughter
of lyeyasu, thinking thereby to secure the support of this most powerful of the
Imperial princes. He appointed five councillors of the kingdom as regents.
However, the actual government was in the hands of the mother of the heir, a
woman of extraordinary beauty and energy. The peace that had been estab-
lished was not destined to endure for long. It is by no means certain who
was the first to break it. The ambition of lyeyasu, who, like other nobles, had
been obliged to acknowledge the capacity of the father, but despised the son,
may have been the occasion of an open rupture. The outbreak of the war,
which was in any case inevitable, may also have been precipitated by the regent's
fear of the actual or supposed plans of lyeyasu. The fact that the most powerful
princes of the west and the south, especially Mori and Shimazu (p. 30), were on
the side of Hideyori, no doubt strongly contributed to induce lyeyasu, the cham-
pion of the east, to take up arms.
After long preparations and petty conflicts in different places, in which lyeyasu
•displayed both greater power and more patient forbearance, matters came to an
open rupture in 1600. In a battle fought at Sekigahara on Lake Biwa, not far
from Kioto, lyeyasu utterly defeated the allies, partly with the help of treachery,
and followed up his advantage with unexampled energy. Osaka and Fushimi,
which had been strongly fortified by Taikosarna and formed the key to Kioto, fell,
•one after another, together with the capital itself, into the hand of the conqueror.
Many of the hostile leaders committed hara-kiri ; others, who declined as Christians
to commit suicide, were publicly executed ; the remainder were forced to submit ;
while those who favoured lyeyasu were bound more firmly to his cause by gifts of
land and marriage alliances. Notwithstanding this great success, lyeyasu left
Hideyori in possession of his position and dignities, and merely limited his income
by imposing upon him the duty of erecting castle buildings and other expensive
undertakings. The newly discovered gold mines in Sado provided him with rich
resources for the execution of his further plans. In 1603 lyeyasu was appointed
.shogun. However, he soon abdicated, and procured the appointment of his son
Hidetada to this dignity in 1605, retaining the actual power in his own hands.
Hidetada resided in Yedo, while lyeyasu kept watch upon his opponents from
•Suruga. In 1614 a new conflict broke out, the result, no doubt, of the growing
popularity of Hideyori. lyeyasu and Hidetada made an attack upon Osaka, the
VOL. II — 3
34 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
residence of Hideyori, apparently without success. After concluding the pacifica-
tion they marched back toward Kwanto, but suddenly wheeling round, reappeared
before Osaka, and took the town after a short struggle, being aided by treachery
within the walls. During the storming of the fortress, Hideyori disappeared;
lyeyasu himself, who had been wounded during the operations, died in the next
year (1615). The lords of the east had now definitely conquered the west, and
the advantage thus gained they were enabled to retain, until the restoration of the
mikado government (1868; cf. p. 49).
(/) THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF FEUDALISM
(a) Anterior to the Year 1615. — Feudalism in Japan is usually considered to>
have originated in the year 1192, when Yoritomo abolished the imperial] civil gov-
ernors (Kokushu), who had been previously drawn from the Kuge's (court nobility);
and replaced them with military governors (shugo,. protectors) belonging to the
Buke* class. However, the actual beginnings of this organisation must belong to
that period toward the close of the ninth century,, when the family holdings of
the peasants (that is, under the system of vassal tenure under taxation created by
the Taikwa reforms; cf. p. 16) were replaced by the great estates,, exempted from
taxation, of the Shoyo and Denyo owners. The former of these systems originated
in grants of land to those by whom it had been brought under cultivation, the lat-
ter in the arbitrary appropriation of government lands by the governors and their
subordinate officials. From the tenth to the twelfth century, as Fukuda observes,
the Shoyos absorbed the larger proportion of all the landed property ; the country-
became the freehold property of the occupants, who were independent of the pro-
vincial governors and exempt from taxation. These inhabitants were known as
Ryoshu (territorial owners) or Honjo (owners of hereditary estates) ; they usually
lived in Kioto, or upon their ancestral property, and handed over the administra-
tion of their estates to shoshi, or bailiffs. The territory subject to the governors
(kokuga) passed through a similar stage of development. These officials and
their subordinates, like the Kuges of Kioto, absorbed the peasant holdings, bought
up the properties held by families in common, and possessed themselves of the
common forests and meadows, which thus became private denyo possessions. The
right of administering justice was usually concurrent with possession ; the conse-
quence was that not only the income of the emperors, that is, the government, but
also their judicial powers, were greatly restricted, and what they lost the great
landowners gained.
During the following centuries, which were occupied by continual civil war,
this condition of affairs was naturally considerably extended. Toward the end of
the sixteenth century the whole country was in the hands of great territorial lords,
who, whatever their position, had risen from the military order, and to whom, in-
stead of to the emperor, the peasants were responsible for the payment of taxation
and the performance of labour services. Where individuals of importance gained
and exercised high powers, the smaller owners within the boundaries of their
property, or within their sphere of influence, were dependent upon them. Hence
at the outset of the seventeenth century two lines of feudal relation had been
formed : there was the theoretical relation of the great owners to the helpless
emperor, and the practical dependence of the smaller owners upon their powerful
l] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 35
overlords. Of the latter character was the connection of the members of the
Samurai (military and noble) classes with their masters, though here again a
further subdivision existed, according as a dependent was invested with the pos-
session of land, or only received pay, usually made in rice ; he performed service
according to his rank, either alone or with a following of his adherents, either in
the cavalry or as a foot-soldier. Cavalry service in Japan, as in all feudal States,
was considered the more respectable, and carried with it the further distinction of
permission to ride on horseback in times of peace.
(b) Under lyeyasu and his Successors. — Such was the general condition of
affairs when lyeyasu became powerful enough to establish the main features of his
administration. In general he introduced but few reforms, and contented himself
with accommodating the existing system to the necessities of his government, and
with making numerous changes in the possessions held by the territorial lords ; he
transferred them from one province to another, according as he desired to reward or
to punish them, a change which carried with it diminution or increase of revenue.
Officials in immediate connection with the empire were alone excepted from this
measure. Hideyoshi had already cleared the way for these changes by his distri-
bution of the landowners into three classes : these were the Kokushu, the owners
of a province at least ; the Kyoshu (landed owners), in possession of land bring-
ing in a yearly revenue of one hundred thousand koku or more of rice (a koko
equals one and eight-tenths hectolitres) ; and the Yoshu (the owners of castles
whose property brought in an annual income of less than one hundred thousand
koku). Territorial owners were known as Daimyos (landed lords), a title which,
however, properly belonged to the first two of these classes. The Kokushu became
the military governors of Yoritomo ; after the fall of the Hojo family (about 1333),
the title formerly appropriated to the civil governors had been assumed by them,
though their relation to the emperor had been in no way altered by the change ;
when for a short period the government returned to the hands of the emperor and
the Kuge*s, the friendly treatment then meted out to this class was of an illusory
nature, possessing no practical value.
lyeyasu added two additional classes — the Hatamoto and the Gokenin — to
the three already existing. The Hatamoto, who numbered apparently two thou-
sand, possessed different positions and incomes, some being small landed owners,
while others were paid yearly incomes in rice by the shogun ; of the former,
seven were placed upon an equality with the Daimyos, in so far as they were
obliged to reside alternately in Yedo and upon their property, whereas all the
others were forced to remain permanently in Yedo. The Gokenin, about five
thousand in number, received a small salary, and were employed to fill low official
posts under the shogun. Next in order to these came the common Samurai.
Very similar was the condition of the larger territorial owners, since they also
had a number of vassals in direct dependence upon them. Generally speaking,
the organisation of these private vassal-trains was as follows : In the first place,
the Karos, who often bore the title of minister, were almost invariably in posses-
sion of land within the district of their lords, who could summon them with
their contingents to war. In the case of certain territorial owners, lyeyasu seems
to have appointed Karos, and to have sent them into their territory, apparently
with the object of thus keeping watch upon the lords and bringing pressure to
36 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
bear upon them in case of necessity. The Samurai were either in possession
of land or received an income of rice, the former of the two positions being the
higher esteemed. They usually dwelt under the prince's roof, or in close prox-
imity to his castle. Many of these territorial owners, upon their transference to
other districts, were unable to take with them a large proportion of their adherents,
but they often found numerous Samurai upon the spot who had lost their former
lord or had been uuable to depart with him. From these people (Goshis) a kind
of provincial militia was formed, the eldest son of a family inheriting the name,
rank, and property of his father, while the other children remained upon the level
of the common folk. The Goshi was allowed to sell his name, his position, or his
land, with the permission of the overlord. If he sold only a portion of the latter,
he retained his name and his rank; he lost both upon the sale of his whole
property. The Goshis were allowed to possess horses, and were often people of
influence and position ; the common peasants were their servants. Upon the resto-
ration of the mikado the Goshis alone retained their landed property, since it
was assumed that they had not received it from the Tokugawa, but had been in
occupation from the remotest times (cf. above, p. 19). Intermediate between the
Samurai and the common peasants were the Kukaku, a kind of inferior country
nobility who received a yearly income of rice and wore two swords, were not
allowed to ride, and lived on the borders of the capital or in the country.
The peasants paid their taxes to their overlord, the Karo, or the Samurai,
to whom their land had been assigned, but he was not obliged to transmit such
payments to the territorial owner. The peasants do not seem to have been ab-
solutely in the condition of serfdom. In cases of gross idleness they could be
removed from their property, which they could also sell under certain conditions ;
in time of war they served only as workmen or carriers. The unit of peasant
society was the village, or mura, which usually consisted of fifty men (families),
divided into ten groups of five members. Taxes were neither assessed upon nor
paid by individuals ; a fixed amount was debited against the village, and the in-
habitants were collectively liable. Every peasant possessed his own house and
arable land ; but pastures and grazing lands were common property, while forest
and moor land belonged in most cases to the overlord.
When lyeyasu took up the government, eighteen Kokushu were in existence.
In due course these were increased by the two princes of Kii and Owari, thirty-
two Eyoshu, and two hundred and twelve Yoshu. He introduced, however, another
distribution of the territorial -owners. There were seventy-five Tozama appointed
on an equality with the princes (apparently the earlier of the crown officials).
All others were entitled Fudai (for a long period a term of courtesy, or with the
meaning, old servants) ; they were invested with their possessions by the shogun,
and were allowed, or probably obliged, to take up positions under government.
For this system of division lyeyasu himself gave as a reason that the Gofudai were
the class of owners who had supported him before the capture of the castle of
Osaka in 1603, while the Tozama had only submitted to him at a later period.
Of still greater importance was the distribution of the territorial owners, the
Hatamoto and the officials, into councils, in which they deliberated apart when
summoned by the shogun. The names of these deliberative bodies, derived either
from the names of their meeting chambers, or from those of their component mem-
bers, were as follows: (1) Oroka:nine princes of the Tokugawa family and the
37
prince of Kaga, the richest and most powerful of the Kokushu. (2) Ohiroma :
twelve princes of the Tokugawa family and seventeen Kokushu. (3) Tamarinoma :
the seven most distinguished Gofudai, six from the family of the Minamoto no
Yoritomo, and one, Ikamon no Kani, from the Fujiwara family. (4) Ganaginoma :
seventy-five Tosamma. (5) Tekanoma: sixty-seven Gofudai. (6)Ganoma: forty-
three Gofudai. (7) Kikunoma: thirty-one Gofudai. (8) Fudsionoma : the Hata-
moto and officials of the rank of the Bunyo or governors. (9) Nokonoma: officials
who had been invested by the mikado with the title of Hoii, the sixth in rank at
the imperial court. (10) Kikionoma: subordinate officials. (11) Takiminoma:
inferior officials above the rank of the Kumi gassira, vice-governors, and Narui, vice-
inspectors. These chambers were summoned when any important questions arose.
They arrived at their decisions in isolation by a majority of votes, and the question
at issue was ultimately decided by the vote of the majority of the chambers.
However, the government seems to have paid special attention to the views of the
Tamarinoma, and to the chambers composed of the Hatamoto and the officials.
Current business was transacted by committees composed of such members of indi-
vidual chambers as were present in Yedo.
The relations of the mikado and the Kuges to the empire were so arranged that
while they retained all their titles and prerogatives, they lost every vestige of in-
fluence and power. The income of the imperial court and of the Kuge"s was
reduced as much as possible, and they were almost entirely excluded from con-
nection with the outer world. One hundred and thirty-seven Kuge"s with five titles
of the second class and twenty-seven of the third class had a yearly income of
about 42,500 koku, whereas two hundred and sixty-three Buk£s, including the
shogun, though possessing only one title of the second and four of the third class,
had a yearly income of 30,000,000. The revenue of the imperial court was estab-
lished in 1615 at 10,000 koku, and gradually increased to 120,000 by the year
1706. In 1632 the yearly incomes of all territorial lords amounted to 18,700,000
koku, while the income of the shogun house, derived from its immediate property,
amounted to 11,000,000. lyeyasu issued several proclamations, particularly the
so-called Eighteen and One Hundred laws, the first of which deals particu-
larly with the relations of the shogun to the imperial court, and the latter with
the position of the shogun to the territorial lords, the Samurai, and the people.
These manifestoes explained that the larger incomes of the Buke* class carried with
them the obligation of greater services to the State, whereas the Kugds were allowed
to expend their smaller revenues exclusively upon themselves. Beyond this the
Buke's were obliged to provide cavalry in proportion to one-half of their revenue, at
the rate of five men to every thousand koku, so that a lord with a total income of
200,000 koku provided five hundred cavalry in case of war.
To understand the Japanese constitution at this time is only possible when we
take into account the theory on which lyeyasu defended the virtual deposition of
the emperor and of the Kuge"s, and the transference of the power to the shogun
and Buke's. "According to an old doctrine of the country of the gods (Japan),
the gods are the genii of the heaven, as the emperors are of the earth. The genii
of the heaven and of the earth can be compared with the sun and the moon. And
for the same reason that the sun and the moon fulfil their course, so must the
emperor keep his noble heart unharmed. For that reason, he lives in his palace as
in heaven ; indeed, corresponding to the nine heavens, the palace contains nine sets
38V HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter r
of rooms with twelve gates and eighty chambers ; moreover, his insignia are the
ten virtues, and he is lord of ten thousand chariots (in China the emperor marched
out to war with ten thousand chariots). Every day he is to pray to heaven that
he be an example to the country in philanthropy, the love of his parents, intelli-
gence, and economy ; he shall also be assiduous in the practice of science and the
art of writing. By such means the lofty virtue of the emperor is spread abroad, so
that the faces of his subjects be not overspread with the colour of grief, and that
peace and happiness rule everywhere within the four walls." (The Eighteen Laws,
No. 1.) " As the office of overseer of the two court schools in Kioto (this official,
with others, regulated etiquette at the imperial court) has been transferred to the
shogun, the three Shinno (imperial princes), the Shikke (families in which the
highest dignities were hereditary), the Kuge's, and the territorial lords, are collec-
tively subordinate to him. By his orders he regulates all duties owed to the State,
and in State questions he may act without the emperor's assent. If the country
between the four seas is not at peace, then the shogun shall bear the blame."
(The Eighteen Laws, No. 2.) " In ancient times the emperor was wont to make;
pilgrimages to different temples, and this in order that he might become acquainted
with the sorrows of his people upon the way. Now, however, the emperor has
reformed the government, and entrusted it to the Buke's. If these be unaware of
the miseries of the people, the shogun shall bear the blame. Therefore the ruling
emperor shall no longer leave his palace, except when he betakes himself to visit
in his palace the emperor who has abdicated." (Eighteen Laws, No. 4.) " With
Minamoto no Yoritomo, who governed as Hao (the helper, of the emperor), the
supremacy of Japan has passed to the hands of the Buke's. As the Kuge's car-
ried on the government carelessly, and were unable to maintain order in the
country, all that could be done was for the emperor to order the Buke's to take
over the ancient government. But with inadequate revenues it as impossible to
o')vcni a country, to feed the people, and to perform the public services. Thus the
Kuge's would commit a great "wrong should they seek to detract from the Buke's.
A- 'cording to the old saying, 'All the country under heaven belongs to the
emperor,' the emperor has been ordered by heaven to feed and to educate the
people ; for this reason he orders officials and warriors to care for the peace and
prosperity of the country. It would have been possible to entrust the Kuge's
with the performance of this office ; as, however, this arrangement is displeasing
to the people, the emperor has given it to the Buke's. If the land be not at rest,
differences of rank between high and low disappear, and uproar is the consequence,
and therefore the Buke's shall conscientiously perform the duties of their office."
(Eighteen Laws, No. 15.) " If the five harvests do not come to maturity, then is
the government of the Tenchi (the son of heaven, the emperor) bad ; but if many
punishments must be inflicted throughout the realm, then ye are to know that the
military pnvers of the shogun are inadequate. In either case ye (my successors)
shall make trial of yourselves to that end, and be not careless." (One Hundred
Laws, No. 89. Of. Kernperinann in the " Mitteilungen der deutschen Gesellschaf t
fur Natur- und Vb'lkerkunde Ostasiens.")
Originally the position of the shogun compared with that of the Kokushu was
little more than one of primus inter pares ; it was only by degrees that he gradu-
ally assumed the dominant position. Originally the Kokushu were exempt from
the rule binding upon the landowners of spending a year in Yedo and a year
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 39
upon tlieir properties alternately, their families being obliged to remain perma-
nently in Yedo ; but under the third shogun the Kokushu were in this respect
treated like the smaller princes. The only prerogative which they possessed was,
that as theoretical vassals of the mikado they were crown officials, and received
their investiture at his hands. However, they could only approach the mikado
through the shogun, who superintended the confirmation of titles upon the terri-
torial lords by the emperor. Any direct communication between the imperial
court and the territorial lords was strictly forbidden. Even when travelling from
their districts to Yedo or back, they were not allowed to pass through the capital ;
if they desired to visit the capital or its suburbs, they were required to obtain a
special permit from the shegun, and even then they were not allowed to approach
within a certain distance of the emperor's palace. For a marriage between a mem-
ber of a Buk£ family and one of a Kugd family, the express permission of the
shogun was equally necessary. To become a medium for the transmission of gossip
upon political affairs to the imperial court, was to commit a crime punishable with
the utmost severity.
In other respects all possible measures were taken to keep the territorial lords
in a state of dependence. Upon the redistribution of districts, friends and earlier
foes were so intermingled, that the former could keep an eye upon the latter, and
apart from this, the property of the shogun was scattered throughout the country
in such a manner as to enable him to visit other districts without trouble. Strong
garrisons were kept up in Kioto and Fushimi, as also in several districts of the
province of Suruga ; all the passes leading to Kwanto were provided with guards,
and the chief trading and commercial centres (such as Osaka, Sakai, Nagasaki,
eighteen in number) were in the power of the shogun. Officials of the shogun
now undertook those tours of inspection upon which the emissaries of the mikado
had previously been sent every five or seven years, and in cases where the high
position of the territorial lords, such as the Kokushu, made this kind of supervision
impossible, friends and presumable enemies were entrusted with the task of keep-
ing guard upon one another. Thus, for instance, the defence of the island of
Kyushu was entrusted to Satsuma and his opponent, Hizen, who relieved one
another every year. Moreover, the whole country was covered with a net-work of
officials and spies of the Bak' fu bureaucracy. Thus lyeyasu and his successors
made every possible effort to keep the territorial lords within bounds. The system
•eventually collapsed, not so much before foreign attacks, as because those classes
whom its founder had specially designed to be its supporters, first undermined and
then overthrew it. The shogunate fell because it was abandoned by those who
should have had the greatest possible interest in ensuring its permanence.
K. THE TOKUGAWA (1603 TO 1868)
If the regulation of the position of the emperor, the Kuge's, and the territorial
lords had been difficult, a yet more arduous task confronted the founder of the
dynasty when he came to grapple with the settlement of questions of family pre-
cedence and of the succession. lyeyasu left five sons, the princes of Echizen, Kii,
Owari, Mito, and the second son, Hidetada, whom he had appointed as his successor.
during his lifetime, and invested with the power. He arranged that the succession
should follow the direct line of Hidetada's family, and that if no heir should be
40 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
forthcoming one should be chosen from the house of Kii or that of Owari. These
houses, and that of Hidetada, were entitled " Go-san-keY' as being the three most
important houses. At a later period the title was also extended to include the houses
of Kii, Owari, and Mito, though it did not in this case imply the possession of
claims to the succession. On the other hand, the prince of Mito obtained the right
of demanding or proclaiming in certain cases the deposition of a shogun who had
not performed the duties of his office, while under other conditions the position of
regent was reserved to the prince of Echizen. Thus the prince of Mito was also-
the only territorial lord who possessed the right of direct communication with the-
emperor. It is by no means clear that Echizen, the eldest son, and Mito, the young-
est, were excluded from the succession ; the first had been originally adopted by
Hideyoshi, and had thus ceased to belong to his father's family according to-
Japanese ideas, while the latter had married the daughter of a former enemy. lye-
yasu himself is said to have characterised his son Mito as a very important, but
extremely dangerous personality, and to have compared him to a sharp swordr
which is only harmless so long as it remains in the sheath. Two hundred and
fifty years later the foresight of the founder of this dynasty was to be confirmed ;
in any case, the house of Mito materially contributed to bring about the downfall of
the shogunate.
The question of the succession, already sufficiently difficult, became still further
complicated by the fact that in 1715 the family of Hidetada became extinct in the
direct line. The prince of Kii, who had been appointed shogun, hastened to invest
his second, third, and fourth sons with the titles of princes of Taiasu, Shimizu, and
Hitotsubashi ; he then arranged that these three families, to whom he gave the'
common title " Go-san-kio " (the three lords), should provide a successor in the
event of his first son's descendants becoming extinct in the direct line. This regu-
lation also proved ineffectual. A younger son of the house of Mito, who had been
adopted by a prince of Hitotsubashi, was appointed shogun ; the last of a long line,
his loss of the supremacy in no way redounded to his honour.
lyeyasu died at his castle of Sumpu, in Suruga, on March 8, 1616, and, accord-
ing to his wish, was buried a year later in Mkko. This is a mountainous dis-
trict, richly wooded and adorned with every kind of natural beauty, about ninety
miles north of Yedo, where Buddhist and Shintoist temples, erected by the holy
Shodo Shonin, had existed from the close of the eighth century. A representative-
of the mikado and of the shogun, together with a great number of the KugeX the
territorial lords, and their military comrades, were present at the burial of the-
deceased, upon whom the mikado conferred a special title of honour to mark
the occasion. The dead man was created Sho-ichi-i, To-sho, Dai Gon-gen ; that
is, noble of the first class, of the first rank, great light of the east, great incarna-
tion of Buddha. After the death of the former abbot and the abdication of his
successor, Go Mizuno, the fifth son of the mikado was appointed high priest of
Nikko, in the year 1654, under the title of Riunoji no Miya. He and his succes-
sors, who were afterwards princes of the imperial house, usually resided at Yedo,
in the temple of Uyeno, and visited Nikko three times a year. The last of these
royal priests, Kita Shirakawa no miya, who was educated in Germany, was-
abducted by the northern party during the civil war of 1 868, and set up as an oppo-
sition mikado, but shortly afterward succumbed to the attacks of the victorious
southerners. Of the successors of lyeyasu, one only, his grandson, lyemitsu (1623
111
<J
o
us
Ui
in
W •£•
> 3
q •§
[Vj o
o *
<u
w g
H
Q
w
o
OH
f1"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 41
to 1651 ; ob. 1652), was buried in Nikko. All the other shoguns were buried at
Yedo, either within the precinct of the temple of Uyeno or within that of Shiba.
The temple buildings of Nikko (see the plate, " The Cemetery and Temple Build-
ings of Nikko in Japan "), are certainly the greatest, the richest, and the most
beautiful in Japan, and are distinguished by the artistic finish of the buildings and
the decorations of their interior, as well as by the beauty of the surrounding land-
scape. The interest of the spot and of its buildings is further increased by the
numerous dedicatory presents in and about it which have been brought from every
part of the country, and, in some cases, even from Korea.
Hidetada, the first successor of lyeyasu, followed in his father's footsteps, and
maintained the institutions introduced by him. lyemitsu, the grandson of the
founder of the dynasty, was, undoubtedly, the most important of the fourteen
shoguns who followed lyeyasu. He laid a stronger hand upon the reins of govern-
ment, obliged the great landowners to render a formal recognition of his undisputed
supremacy, and made himself and his successors masters of Japan. The visit
which he paid to the mikado in Kioto, in 1623, was the last paid by any sho-
gun until the year 1863. It was under his rule, in 1641, that the Dutch and
the Chinese were sent to Nagasaki, and all other foreigners were expelled from the
country, while emigration was forbidden to the Japanese. • The coinage and the
weights and measures in use were reduced to a common standard, the delimitation of
the frontiers was begun and completed, maps and plans of the districts and castles-
belonging to the territorial lords were made, the genealogical trees of these latter
were drawn out, and all names obliterated which might have aroused disagreeable
political recollections or have given rise to' inconvenient claims. Moreover, the
two State councils, the upper and the lower chambers were reorganized. Finally,,
lyernitsu made his capital of Yedo, not only the most beautiful, but also the most
cleanly and the best fortified town in the kingdom. The castle, with its triple line
of walls and moats, was then considered as impregnable, and even to-day rouses
the admiration of the visitor. lyemitsu was also the first to employ the title of
" taikun " (great lord), as the expression of his absolute power in his intercourse
with other countries, such as Korea.
Of his successors we need only mention Yoshimune (1716-1745), the last of
the direct descendants of lyeyasu. He gave much attention to the improvement
of agriculture and manufactures, and removed the prohibition upon the introduc-
tion of European books, though this still held good of such as dealt with the Chris-
tian religion. Of the remaining successors it need only be said that they confined
their actions, generally speaking, to the lines already laid down. However, their
power of independent action was completely destroyed by the bureaucracy, which
took into its hands more and more of the administration. G-overnment depart-
ments degenerated in consequence, and the fall of the shogunate was the ultimate
result.
Tokuzo Fukuda, in his work upon the social and economic development of
Japan, defines the government of the Tokugawa as a period in which the govern-
ment was that of a policeman with unlimited powers. This statement, however, is
true only of the second half of the government of the shoguns, and of that only in
so far as the administration was careful to maintain existing institutions and to
throw obstacles in the way of all innovations, which the bureaucracy in Japan, as-
everywhere, considered as so many threats against the existence of the State. The
42 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter i
heaviest oppression has never been more than a temporary obstacle to national
development ; and so in Japan under the shogunate, development, far from com-
ing to a standstill, followed a roundabout course, and society advanced by devious
paths from the old order to the new. The most obvious confirmation of this fact is
the part played by the towns, or, more correctly, by the mercantile class of the
community.
The vigorous rule of the first shoguns, and especially of the third, had convinced
the territorial lords that the dynasty of the Tokugawa was entirely capable of main-
taining its supremacy, and that any attacks upon it would recoil upon the heads of
their promotors. At the same time the measures of the shogunate, especially those
respecting the hereditary rights of the great families, had inspired the conviction
that the existence of the territorial nobility, so far from being endangered, was
secured even more permanently than before. The great nobles were therefore able
to concentrate their attention upon the peaceful development of their districts.
The common Samurai were in a far more evil case (cf. above, p. 19), especially in
the matter of their yearly salary of rice. Their business was war, and any other
occupation was forbidden to them. As, however, their salaries were usually inade-
quate for their support, the consequence was that in the course of time a large pro-
portion of the Samurai became deeply involved in debt. They were then obliged
either to lay aside their swords, renounce their profession and enter some other, or
while retaining their swords, to leave the service of their overlords and to join the
class of the Eonins, the masterless Samurai, who were the terror not only of the
peaceful citizens, but also of the government. As regards the peasants (cf. above,
p. 36), the position of those settled upon the land of the shogun was, upon the whole,
preferable to the lot of those within the districts of the territorial lords. While
the former were treated with kindness and consideration, the latter were without
defence against the extortions of the officials of their prince. The average holding
of a peasant was small ; the least quantity of land amounted to about a hectare, and
was but seldom increased, consequently their agriculture was rather of the charac-
ter of market gardening.
Fukuda asserts that the towns had developed from and around the permanent
castles of the territorial lords, for the reason that the formation of towns in Japan
dates from the period of war after the twelfth century. The statement is correct
only from one point of view. In a State which had already existed for a thousand
years, men and houses must have collected in large numbers at the most important
points upon the several lines of communication. Naturally the new territorial
lords would choose such positions for the central points of their districts, and
would settle and erect their fortified castles in them; not less naturally the
inhabitants would gather more closely round the protecting castles, and possibly in
the course of time two or three villages may thus have been united into one com-
O v
munity. At any rate, the towns of early Japan never attained any power of self-
government; they were not even considered as independent communities, and the
period of their growth and prosperity begins, in almost every case, at the time ,
following the rule of lyeyasu. Centuries of civil war by no means favoured the
increase of merchants and handicraftsmen, and of these the population of the towns
was chiefly composed. The system of caste which prevailed in Japan must also
have hindered commercial development. The warrior caste was the first ; with it,
if not theoretically, at any rate in practice, were conjoined the castes of scholars, ,
?1*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 43
physicians, artists, priests, and others ; then came the farmers, the handicraftsmen,
and finally the merchants. Below these were the dishonourable castes (actors,
jugglers, dancing women, etc.) and the unclean castes (knackers, tanners, execu-
tioners, etc.).
After their rise the towns lay either on the demesne of the landed lords, upon
whose whims and ideas their growth materially depended, or on the demesne of
the shoguns, who had succeeded in getting possession of the most important trading
centres, — Yedo, Osaka, Kauagawa, Nagasaki, Sakai, Hakodate, and Niegata. Hence
the shogunate was obliged to confront the task of extending trade and procuring
the recognition of the traders' importance. Even during the period of foreign
influx the shoguns had made every effort to secure to themselves the largest
possible share of the profits derived from commercial intercourse with other lands,
and this object they entirely attained when they remaved the Dutch and the
Chinese to Nagasaki, At the same time expjrts and imports were so regulated in
amount that the balance of trade might be, as much as passible, in favour of Japan.
Foreign wares were sold at so high a price > as to be within the reach only of the
richest classes, while the exportation of anything that the country wanted, or
seemed to want, was restricted or prohibited entirely. Thus in 1752 the exporta-
tion of gold, which had previously been subject to repeated restrictions, was
entirely forbidden; in 1685 the exportation of silver, which had been employed to
pay for the imports, was limited to two thousand pounds, an amount further
reduced to five hundreds pounds in 1790 ; in 1685 exports of copper were limited
to two thousand piculs (about one thousand kilogrammes) ; from 1715 onward,
•only two Dutch ships were allowed to touch at Japan, and from 1790 only one.
Communication with the Chinese was limited in a similar manner.
On the other hand, every effort was made to provide facilities for internal
trade, especially after the year 1694, when guilds (kumiai) were created in Osaka
and Yedo, at first ten in each town, a number afterward increased to twenty dur-
ing the years 1720 to 1730. These were free societies, occupied with mercantile
and shipping business, and seemed to have been chiefly active in promoting the
sale of the manufactures produced on the demesnes of the territorial lords. Con-
sequently an unusually severe blow was dealt at their existence in the middle of
the eighteenth century, when the lords demanded and obtained the permission to
;sell their products at the great commercial centres by means of their own merchants.
Possibly it was this regulation which induced the government in 1813 to place the
guilds upon another footing. They now became close corporations of merchants
and manufacturers ; their numbers and the numbers of their members were defined
by law. They were not allowed to elect new members, but upon the death of an
individual could admit only his blood relations, and they held the monopoly of the
sale of that particular article with which they were concerned. In 1841 this
arrangement was abolished, after many complaints had been made of the manner
in which prices had been forced up; but it was reintroduced in 1851, apparently
because the government thought they could not dispense with the general super-
vision exercised by the guilds.
In other respects, during the rule of the Tokugawa, conditions remained practi-
cally unaltered. Ancestor worship continued, as did the patriarchal system, and the
responsibility of the patriarch for the actions of members of the family. The law
•of inheritance, which gave a disproportionately fayoured position to the eldest son,
44 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
remained unaltered. The majority of posts in the service of the shoguns and
of the territorial lords continued to be hereditary. Custom demanded that a son
should succeed to the profession or the handicraft of his father. It was extraordi-
narily difficult to pass from one class to another. All these restrictions must have
constituted so many obstacles to the free development of the individual and con-
sequently to the progress of society.
L. THE FALL OF THE SHOGUNATE
(a) The Last ToJcugawa Shoguns. — Soon after the shogunate had passed to the-
Tokugawa, a certain opposition began to arise within this family itself to the policy
of usurpation by which the mikado had been deprived of his rights. This move-
meat remained for a long period exclusively literary, and its chief representatives-
and supporters were to be found among the princes of the house of Mito. The
early history of this house is a good example of the manner in which the fortunes
of the landed nobility changed during the age preceding the definite pacification of
the kingdom. The territory afterward included in this principality was governed
from the tenth century by scions of the Taira family. It was overcome in 1427
by Yedo Michifusa, who was the first to assume the name of Mito. In the year
1590 the Yedo family were driven out by the Satake. Yoshinobu, a member of
the latter house, who had joined the side of Hideyori, was transferred to Akita by
lyeyasu in 1602. The fifth son of lyeyasu was appointed prince of Mito in his
place ; when he died, upon the journey to Mito, the tenth son took up the position.
He was afterward transferred to Suruga in 1609, but became prince of Kii about
ten years later, and was then succeeded by the eleventh son, Yorifusa, who was-
born in 1603 (cf. above, p. 39).
Yorifusa died in 1661, and was succeeded by his second son, Mitsukuni. He-
invited learned men to his court, among them apparently a number of Chinese
who had fled to Japan before the Manchus, and with their help he published,
among other works, the " Dainihonshi " (the history of greater Japan, from Jimmu
Tenno as far as the year 1393, in two hundred and forty books) ; this is still con-
sidered as a work of capital importance for Japanese history. He also published
the " Reigiruiten" (concerning the ceremonies at the imperial court, in five hundred
and ten books). These works and a large collection of Chinese and Japanese-
books, to which the prince continued to make additions until his death (1700),
largely contributed to direct the attention of scholars to early Japanese history ;
hence Mitsukuni is justly considered as the founder and promoter of the move-
ment which is usually characterised as a revival of the pure Shinto teaching, and
undoubtedly exerted a powerful influence in preparing the way for the restoration
of the mikados. The men who were chiefly influential for their work in this-
direction were Kada (oh. 1736), Mabushi (ob. 1769), and Motoori (ob. 1801); the
latter published the" Kojikiden," that is, explanations of the Kojiki, a work which
attracted the greatest attention not only among scholars, but also, and particularly,
among the landed nobility. The " Dainilionshi " was continued by the princes of
Mito, and printed in 1851 after a long period of circulation in manuscript. The
successors of Mitsukuui, besides being patrons of literature, were also sound and
economical administrators of the country, so that the princes of Mito acquired
a reputation as excellent rulers in contrast to the shoguns. In 1829 Nariakira,,
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 45
the brother of his predecessor, Narinaga, became prince ; he was destined to play a
leading part in the struggle against the shogunate.
The increasing poverty of the Samurai, the growing degeneracy of the shogun
government due to the rise of a bureaucracy, the rapid spread of foreign ideas and
the concurrent diminution in the power of the shoguns, together with the more
.ardent desire of the territorial lords for partial or complete independence, — these
influences found expression in the formation of parties at the imperial court as well
.as at the court of the shogun. The situation became even more strained as the
repeated appearance of foreign vessels off the Japanese coasts (the first of these
visitors was the Kussian squadron off Yezo in 1792) increased the fears of a hostile
.attack. When apprehensions of this nature drove the government of the shogun
in 1842 to request the landed nobility to take measures for coast defence, the only
response was a general outcry occasioned by the shortness of money and the need
for assistance.
(b) TJie Opening of Japan to the Foreigner. — Some years after the appoint-
ment of Nariakira, collisions had taken place in Mito between the political schools
•(sects) of the country, one of which stood for the mikado, another for the shogun,
while the third remained in a vacillating frame of mind. These disturbances
resulted in an open revolt against the government of the shogun, which was, how-
ever, suppressed with comparative ease. None the less, after so long a period of
peace, such a movement was necessarily regarded as a sign of serious import. In
«very principality were to be found those divisions of opinion which existed in Mito.
During this period of ferment in 1853 occurred the arrival of the Commodore
Matthew Calbraith Perry, who, in the name of the United States of North America,
•demanded that Japan should be thrown open to his countrymen. During the
progress of the discussions which his appearance had occasioned, both within the
government and among the territorial lords, the shogun lyeyoshi died, having been
.apparently murdered. In him the government lost an energetic and far-seeing
prince, and his successor, li-kamon no kami, the hereditary regent, who then con-
ducted the government for lyesada during his minority, was a man of greatly infe-
rior capacity. As li-kamon, the most distinguished of the Gofudai Daimyos, was
determined to maintain the old shogunate constitution and to avoid any step that
might bring a foreign enemy into alliance with the old native opposition, he
•concluded the treaty of Kanagawa with Commodore Perry, by which the har-
bours of Simoda and Hakodate were thrown open to the United States (March
31, 1854).
This step provided the mikado and his adherents with a common war-cry,
" Jo-i ! " (" Drive out the strangers ! "), which, as a matter of fact, was directed rather
•against the shogunate than against the foreign intruders. While negotiations were
in progress with Mr. Townsend Harris, the resident minister of the United States,
for the conclusion of an additional treaty, the young shogun died in 1859. It
seems that he, like his father before him, was murdered, and the crime was attri-
buted to the instigation of the prince of Mito. On this occasion a motive for the
murder can be found. By the laws of the kingdom, one of the three Gosankio
princes would now have to be chosen as shogun, and the prince of Hitutsbashi was
a son of Nariakira. But li-kamon once again gave proof of superior strength, and
succeeded in procuring the appointment of the prince of Kii, who was then twelve
46 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
years old. The prince of Mito was condemned to close confinement in his palace,
and the princes who seemed to have supported him were obliged in some cases to
abdicate, and were punished in others with imprisonment. The regent appeared to
have broken down all resistance. However, in March, 1860, he was attacked by a
band of the retainers of Mito and murdered. His successor, Ando Tsushima no
kami, met a similar fate. A year later he was also attacked, and only escaped at
the cost of a severe wound. Shortly afterward he resigned his office.
In the meanwhile, in the year 1858, conventions were concluded with the
United States, England, France, Eussia, and Portugal, and with Prussia in 1861,
whereby Kanagawa, Nagasaki, and Hakodate were thrown open to foreign trade ;
the opening of further harbours was contemplated ; diplomatic representatives were
admitted to Yedo, and consuls to the treaty ports ; while foreign subjects were placed
under the jurisdiction of their consuls. These steps gave the mikado and the terri-
torial nobility new reasons for dissatisfaction with the shogun and an excuse for
hostile action against the foreigners. The export trade developed rapidly, and the
consequent rise in the price of every article caused great irritation among the
Samurai and excited them to the murder of a number of foreigners. The flames
were further fed by an attempt on the part of the Eussians to get possession of the
island of Tsushima in 1861, notwithstanding the fact that English intervention
forced them to retire from the island. On the 5th of July, 1861, the English
embassy in Yedo was attacked by a band of desperadoes. The English minister,
Mr. Eutherford Alcock, was unable to secure the payment of the indemnity which
he demanded, and at the same time the shogun's government declared that the
general feeling of the country would not permit the opening of the other harbours
which had been proposed. Alcock returned to England, followed by a Japanese
embassy. However, the Japanese government found itself unable to fulfil the con-
ditions on which the English had thought it necessary to insist in granting the
period of grace which the Japanese demanded for the performance of their exist-
ing treaty obligations. Meanwhile, the English embassy had been again molested,
and two of the marines who had been told off to guard it were killed in an affray
on the 26th of June, 1862 ; and on the 14th of September, 1862, a number of
English were attacked on the Tokaido by the members of the following of Shimazu
Saburo, the father of the prince of Satsuma. Some were wounded and one (Mr.
Eichardson) was killed.
While these events were taking place in and around Yedo, the enemies of the
shogun in Kioto had not remained idle ; large bands of wandering Samurai had
collected, apparently with the object of protecting the mikado and making a move-
ment against the foreigners. The landed nobility of Satsuma, Choshu (Xagato, the
family of Mori) and Tosa, who had there united, were entrusted by the mikado
with the conduct of the movement against his enemies. The coalition of these
three princes, which was to become of high importance during the following years,
was named " Sat-cho-to " by the Japanese, from the initial syllables of the three
names. The old Nariakira had died in September, 1861; however, the mikado
was zealously supported in all his plans by the above-named princes together with
the prince of Echizen. On the 1st of January, 1863, the newly erected embassy
on the Gotenyama in Yedo was burned to the ground by Eon ins. an outbreak caused
by the fact that the mikado had forbidden the transference of the place to the Eng-
lish, while the latter refused to surrender their rights. Meanwhile, negotiations
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 47
were proceeding for the indemnities demanded by England for the murder of
Eichardson and the second attack upon the embassy. By arranging or permitting
an emigration of the whole Japanese population from Yokohama in the month of
May, the Japanese authorities had attempted to put pressure upon the English
charge* d'affaires, Colonel Neale, and upon the other foreigners. It was not until
this attempt together with others had failed that they resolved on the 24th of
June to pay the indemnities demanded. On the following day, however, at the
mikado's orders they demanded the closing of Yokohama, a demand which was
renewed upon the 25th of October in spite of the protests of the foreign represent-
atives. The Japanese government was not without excuse for this extraordinary
step in so far as in the letter of the President, Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), which
Commodore Perry had delivered, the opening of Japan was expressly described
as an experiment, an explanation repeated by the parties to the wording of the
contract of 1858.
On the 30th of September, 1863, the Choshu men in Kioto made an attempt,
which was defeated without bloodshed by the troops of the shogun, to seize the
person of the mikado. They then evacuated the town and retired into the district
of their master with the seven Kuge*s who had been implicated in the movement.
Two of these Kuge*s, Iwakura and Sawa, became important after the restoration of
the mikado's position, as prime minister and minister for foreign affairs. A few
days before this event the batteries of the prince of Choshu opened fire in the
Straits of Shimonoseki upon an American trading steamer which was there lying
at anchor, and a fortnight later upon a French gunboat, the " Aviso Kienchang,"
and the Dutch corvette " Medusa," as they were passing through. This was
an attempt of the prince to carry out the mikado's order for the expulsion of the
foreigners. Some of the prince's ships and batteries were destroyed by the action
of the French and the American fleets, but these powers were not able to reopen the
straits to communication. The representatives of England, France, the United
States, and the Netherlands met in Yokohama to discuss the situation on the 25th
of July, 1863. Colonel Neale then led the English squadron to Kagoshima to
demand satisfaction from the local territorial lord for the murder of Eichardson at
the hands of his people. The refusal of this dignitary was followed by the bom-
bardment of Kagoshima on the 15th of August. Though this cannot be described
as a military success, yet it served to convince the leading powers in Satsuma of
the necessity of coming to an understanding with England. On the llth of
December, 1863, the ambassadors of the prince in Yokohama paid down the indem-
nity demanded. Attempts made by the French government to conclude a conven-
tion for the reopening of the Straits of Shimonoseki with a Japanese embassy which
had come to them upon other business proved a failure, as also did the per-
sonal efforts of two young men of Choshu, Ito and Inouye, who were afterward
destined to play a greater part in Japan (cf. the summary of the last ministry sup-
plemental to p. 52). In the first days of September, 1864, a united squadron of
the four powers ultimately destroyed the fortresses in the straits and forced the
prince to submit to the foreign demands. The episode ended with the payment of
an indemnity (£750,000) by the Japanese government to the four powers.
(c) The Fall of the Shogunate. — Notwithstanding the European intervention,
these events had only been so many links in the war carried on by the western and
48 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
southern princes against the shogun, and in the meantime events in Kioto had devel-
oped further. On the 20th of August the men of Choshu advanced again toward the
town and made a second attempt to seize the person of the mikado. In the street
fighting which followed the town was set on tire and largely destroyed. But the
troops of the shogun were joined by the men of Satsuma, whom the high-handed
proceedings of Choshu had offended, and succeeded in driving off their opponents.
Those of the assailants who had not been killed committed hara-kiri. The prince of
•Choshu was banished as a rebel, and the imperial princes were called out against
him. Events had thus changed in favour of the shogun ; however, he wanted money,
men, and resolution ; above all there was disunion and disloyalty in his party, and
•even in his own family. Mito, Kii, Owari, and Echizen were inclined to treachery,
.and it was only from the northern princes that the shogun could hope for ener-
getic support. Thus the struggle tended to develop into a conflict of south and
west against east and north. It was a repetition (cf. p. 33) of that earlier struggle
for existence between the two parts of the kingdom in which the northern had
hitherto been the conqueror.
The objection of the mikado to the presence of foreigners in the country, and
to the concessions made to foreigners in the conventions, had hitherto been the
<jhief obstacle with which the Europeans had to deal in their relations with Japan,
hence the recognition of the conventions by the mikado appeared to be a political
necessity. This success was attained by the common action of the representatives
•during November, 1866, though the general feeling of the country toward the
foreigners remained without improvement. In September, 1866, shortly after the
infliction of a decisive defeat upon the troops of the shogun by those of Choshu,
the shogun lyemochi died, and the death of the mikado Komei followed in
January of the next year. lyemochi was succeeded by Hitotsubashi, and Komei
by the present mikado, Mutsuhito. These changes in the leading personalities did
not, however, cause any alteration in the political situation ; on the contrary, the
feeling between the two parties was the more intensified. An agreement was
brought about between Satsuma and Choshu, chiefly by the intervention of the
•elder Saigo, who was revered as a national hero. This step increased the pres-
sure put upon the weak and vacillating Hitotsubashi. He declared himself in
favour of the view, which had been for a time gaining ground among the more
•enlightened of Japanese politicians, that the government should be in future con-
trolled by one head, and that head the mikado. Ultimately, on November 16,
1867, he resigned his office of shogun, at any rate with reference to the conduct of
•domestic policy, while retaining the administration of foreign affairs, and demanded
that the whole question of the constitution should be laid before a general assembly
of the territorial lords. His opponents declined to consider the proposal, and on
January 3, 1868, they seized the person of the mikado. The shogun, who had
hitherto been resident in Kioto, abandoned the capital, retired to Osaka, and at
the end of January, 1869, made an advance upon Kioto. On the 30th of the
month he was defeated at Fushimi, partly by treachery, and fled to an American
warship lying in the roadstead of Osaka, and from thence to a Japanese vessel
bound for Yedo. Proscribed as a rebel, he submitted without a blow to the troops
of the mikado, which were advancing on Yedo. His life was spared, but the clan
of the Tokugawa was deprived of almost all its revenue, and its territory was
limited to the district about Sumpu.
?/"''] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 49
Such of the Tokugawa and of the northern Daimyos as remained in Yedo
were defeated on July 4 at the storming of Uyeno. The imperial prince there
resident was, however, carried oft' to the north, and set up by the local princes as
a kind of opposition mikado. On November 6 the resistance in this district was
broken down by the capture of the castle of Wakamatsu, the residence of the
prince of Aizu. The fleet of the shogun had shown great vacillation, and had
neither taken part in the war nor made submission to the mikado. On October 4,
after taking on board some of the land forces, it left the Bay of Yedo for Yezo,
under the leadership of the admiral Enomoto. The most important places in the
south of the island were rapidly conquered and a republic proclaimed. A con-
siderable interval elapsed before the mikado's forces advanced upon Yezo. How-
ever, after a series of battles Enomoto surrendered the fort of Kamida at Hakodate,
the last stronghold of the defence, to the mikado's troops, on June 26, 1869. His
life and those of his followers were spared.
Thus dishonourably, almost without resistance, fell the dynasty of the Toku-
gawa shoguns, which for nearly four hundred years had given peace and prosperity
to the country. Its fall was due to its own weak and miserable condition, and
also to the fact that it was deserted by those who should, for their own interest,
have lent it their support. The dynasty and its adherents were lacking in the
determination which distinguished their opponents, the princes of the south and
west. As in all former struggles in Japan, victory ultimately remained with that
party which had succeeded in securing the person of the mikado. None the less,
it is one of the most remarkable facts in history that the moral influence of a
ruling dynasty which had been powerless for seven hundred years, and the heads
of which had been excluded from any practical intercourse with the outer world
for two hundred and fifty years, should yet have counted for so much in the con-
flict. As a matter of fact, it was rather the southwest that had conauered the
north, than the mikado who had defeated the shogun.
M. THE MODERN PERIOD
(a) The Restoration of the Mikado Rule. — The movement against the sho-
gunate had begun with the cry, " Down with the foreigner ! " This cry undoubtedly
expressed the desires of the majority who took part in the movement. As fate would
have it, the attacks upon the foreigners united them by the tie of mutual sympathy
at the very outset of the movement. On February 4, a number of people from
Bizen, marching through Kobe, opened fire upon the foreigners who were watching
a play ; on March 8, eleven sailors of a French warship were treacherously mur-
dered in Sakai by men of Tosa ; and on March 22, two of the soldiers belonging to
the mikado's body-guard attacked an English minister as he was on his way to an
audience with his retinue. These outbreaks led to two consequences : they forced
the foreign representatives, whose views cannot have invariably coincided, to unite
for purposes of common defence, and they obliged the counsellors of the mikado,
whether before or behind the scenes, definitely to state their intentions. To the
honour of the advisers it must be said that many of them did not hesitate to declare
their anxiety for the maintenance of good relations with the foreigners and for the
introduction of Western civilization, and that they were also ready to support their
views at the expense of their personal safety. As in previous years the foreigners
VOL. II— 4
50 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
had been exposed to the attacks of the discontented party, so the counsellors of the
mikado now found themselves in a similar position ; more than one suffered death
or severe wounds for what the adherents of the Jo-i party considered as a sin
against patriotism. The mikado's counsellors had indeed a heavy task before
them. Their first step had been to revive the Taikwa constitution of the year
645 A. D. (cf. p. 16). Shortly afterward, at the beginning of April, 1868, the
mikado took a solemn oath before his whole court that a deliberative assembly
should be summoned ; a few days afterward he reviewed the troops and the fleet
in Osaka, and on January 5, 1869, he received the foreign representatives at Yedo.
That the barriers which had previously secluded the mikado had now been
broken down was a great step in advance, but the situation both at home and
abroad was strained and full of danger. In 1867, by orders of the shogun govern-
ment of Kioto, a persecution of the native Christians was begun in the district of
Nagasaki, where remnants of the old Christian community had remained un-
noticed. The persecution was resumed with increased severity when the mikado
returned to the head of affairs, and long efforts on the part of the foreign represent-
atives were necessary before the old prohibitions against Christianity were removed
in 1878. A yet more difficult problem was the relation of the government to the
reactionary party in the country. On the removal of Mutsuhito from Kioto to
Yedo (which had now received the name of Tokio, the eastern capital), the imperial
body-guard (Shimpei) declined to remain behind in the old capital. They accom-
panied the mikado to Tokio, where their presence soon gave rise to a movement
hostile to foreign influence and progress. The government had the greatest
trouble in removing them from Tokio, and the war minister who conducted
their return was murdered by his own followers upon the road, under suspicion
of being friendly to the foreigners. However, the government found that no
support was to be obtained from the assembly of the deputies of the Samurai
class, the first of which met in April, 1869, and the second in June, 1870. This
assembly displayed great inexperience and unwavering opposition to any progres-
sive movement.
None the less, the work of reform continued, and in a manner that must have
been totally unexpected by the instigators and promoters of the movement against
the shoguns. In March, 1869, the princes of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizeu,
the chiefs of the southwestern confederation, despatched a communication to the
mikado, placing their districts and their subjects at his disposal. The offer was
accepted, after the majority of the other Daimyos had joined the movement with
some hesitation. The Daimyos were at first appointed imperial governors over
their districts (Han), but in August, 1871, they were removed from office and
recalled with their families to Yedo. The country was then divided into provinces
(Kin), under the government of imperial prefects. Upon their appointment as
governors, the territorial nobles had lost the larger part of their income, which had
been appropriated for purposes of government; a definite commutation for their
former incomes and those of the Samurai was now arranged. In the case of
these latter (according to the census of 1872, they numbered 634,761 men, and a
.slightly larger number of women, out of a total population of rather more than
33,000,000), their pensions were capitalised at the rate of seven years' purchase
if hereditary, and five years' purchase if for life. To some the capital amount was
paid at once ; others received bonds for the amount bearing interest at eight per
;"a'J HISTORY OF THE WORLD ; 51
cent. Notwithstanding the fact that somewhat more advantageous conditions
were secured by later necessities, most of the Samurai were financially ruined by
this measure. With the abolition of the supremacy of the Daimyos over their
districts, disappeared also the personal connection which had subsisted between
themselves and their adherents ; the Samurai were allowed to lay down their
swords, and to enter any profession that they preferred. At the same time, those
differences were abolished which had hitherto existed betwesn different classes of
the population (the dishonourable and the unclean castes included), and a new
order of nobility was created, which was, however, purely honorary. The peas-
ants' holdings became their personal property, and the old laws ordaining a certain
rotation of crops were abolished in 1871. In 1872 the sale of landed property, and
in 1875 the division of it, was permitted. Nominally, at any rate, the obligation
to belong to a guild was removed in the case of the merchant and the craftsman.
Trade and manufacture were thrown open to all. The responsibility of the head
of the family for its behaviour and the mutual responsibility of its members were
also abolished Together with relief from these duties, the head of the family
naturally lost many of his rights.
Such comprehensive alterations naturally could not be carried out without
much friction and continual misunderstandings. The government of the shogun
was not really replaced by the mikado, who continued to be a generally revered
symbol of supremacy, but by the government of the southwest princes, or rather
of their advisers. The new government soon became a government of clans ; at its
head stood individuals who used the means and the power of their clan to carry
our their plans. In addition to this, the government was shared by a number of
Kuge's, who, like the members of the warrior nobility, had been equalized with
other classes. The two most powerful clans, Satsuma and Choshu, quarrelled, in
1871, over the distribution of posts under the new administration, the Satsuma
considering that it had been unfairly treated in the division. The settlement of
this quarrel led to the creation of an imperial army. Peasant revolts broke out in
Bungo, Shinano, Echigo, and other places. In 1871 a conspiracy was discovered
in Tokio, headed by certain Kuge's; in 1884 a revolt of the Samurai broke out in
Hizen, under the leadership of the former minister of justice, Eto Shimpei ; and
the year 1877 was occupied by the revolt in Satsuma, which was with difficulty
suppressed. The leader of this latter movement was the former general and state
counsellor, Saigo, the ideal of all the Samurai (p. 48).
(6) Japan's Foreign Policy from 1874- to 1893. — Questions of foreign policy
also proved highly embarrassing to ths government. The undertaking against
Formosa, which was brought to an end in 1874 by an agreement with China,
produced ill-feeling between the two States, which was increased in 1880, when
Japan incorporated the Liukiu Islands, which had paid tribute to China from 1372,
and also to Satsuma from 1609.
It was, however, the question of Korea which led to war between China and
Japan. Shortly after the restoration of the mikado government the Japanese gov-
ernment demanded from the Korean the resumption of their payments of tribute, a
demand which was rejected with scorn. Feeling in Japan ran high, and the expe-
dition against Formosa was partly undertaken to distract the popular excitement.
In September, 1875, when the sailors of a Japanese warship, which was occupied
62 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
in surveying the coast, were captured, the national pride again flared up, although
the fort to which the assailants belonged was stormed on the following day, and
almost the whole garrison slaughtered. A Japanese ambassador was sent to
Peking to request definite information upon the position of the Chinese govern-
ment with reference to Korea, and when the Chinese declined all responsibility for
the affairs of that district a Japanese expedition was sent to Korea. Negotiations,
however, preceded any outbreak of hostilities. On February 27, 1876, a conven-
tion was signed, in which Japan practically recognised the independence of Korea,
and that country threw open three harbours to Japanese trade. The peaceful
nature of these operations was one of the chief causes of the revolt of the Satsuma
(p. 51). The peace lasted until the year 1882, when the United States, and shortly
afterward England and Germany, followed the example of Japan, and concluded
conventions with Korea. In July, 1882, a revolt broke out in Seoul, instigated
by the father of the king, Tai wen kun, and directed against the king and the
Japanese ; the Japanese embassy was obliged to flee, but returned a few weeks
afterward, and in the convention of Chemulpho Japan obtained the right to keep
troops in Seoul for the protection of her ambassadors. Chinese troops set the
king free and captured Tai wen kun after a short time ; he was transported to
China, but allowed to return to Korea a few years later. In 1884 fresh dis-
turbances broke out in Seoul. On this occasion the moving influence was the
radical party in connection with the Japanese, the object being to get posses-
sion of the person of the king, and to depose the queen, who was virtually head
of the government. These events gave the Japanese government the opportu-
nity of sending Ito to China as their ambassador. On April 18, 1885, Ito and
Li Hung Chang concluded the convention of Tientsin, both sides pledging them-
selves to withdraw their troops from Korea, and in the event of either being
obliged by circumstances to despatch troops to that country, undertaking to give
the other party due notice. The peace continued for some years, although the
commercial rivalry of the two powers maintained a state of tension in Korea.
The persistence of the opposition in Japan, where a constitution and parlia-
mentary representation had been introduced since 1890, in demanding a more
determined foreign policy, placed the government more than once in an embar-
rassing situation. The tactless procedure of the radical deputy, Oishi, who was
appointed ambassador to Seoul in 1893, would even then have brought about a
breach but for the diplomacy of Li Hung Chang.
(c) The War against China, 1894- to 1895. — In the year 1894 a revolt of the
Tonghaks, a fanatical religious sect, broke out in Korea. The government, being
unable to deal with the movement, applied to the Chinese, who sent a small divi-
sion of troops to their aid, and duly informed the Japanese government of their
action. Japan immediately replied that she could not recognise the Chinese de-
scription of Korea as a tributary State, and would herself also send troops to Korea.
The first Chinese troops landed at Assan, on the east coast of Korea, on June 8,
and the first Japanese in Chemulpho on June 12, 1894. The revolt of the Tonghaks
was quickly suppressed ; but when the Chinese sent information of the fact, as well
as of their intention to withdraw their troops, Japan replied that she had no inten-
tion of evacuating Korea until she had come to an understanding with China about
the reforms to be introduced there.
THE JAPANESE CABINETS FROM DECEMBER 1886 TO THE BEGINNING OF 1902
Duration
December 1886
to
March 1888
April 1888
to
October 1889
October 1889
to
December 1889
December 1889
to
April 1891
May 1891
to
July 1892
President
Hirobumi I to
C.
K. Kuroda t S.
S. Sanjo t K.
A. Yamagata
C.
M. Matsukata
S.
Imperial
Household
Ilirobunii Ito
C.
H. Hisikata
S.
H. Hisikata
S.
H. Hisikata
S.
H. Hisikata
S.
Foreign
Affairs
Ka. Inouye C.
S. Okuma H.
S. Ukuma H.
S. Okuma H.
Shuzo Aoki C.
B. E(Ye)iu)inoto
T.
Home
Affairs
A. Yamagata
C.
A. Yamagata
C.
A. Yamagata
C.
A. Yamagata
C.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Shinagawa t
C.
T. Soyeshima H.
B. Kono t To.
Exchequer
M. Matsnknta
S.
M. Matsukata
S.
M. Matsukata
S.
M. Matsukata
S.
M. Matsukata
S.
War
1. Oyama S.
I. Uyama S.
I. Oyama S.
I. Oyama S.
T. Takashima
S.
Navy
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saigo S.
S. Kabayama S.
S. Kabayama S.
Law
Akiyoshi Yainada
t C.
Akiyoshi Yamada
t c.
Akiyoshi Yamada
t c.
Akiyoslii Yamada
t c.
F. Tanaka
Aichi
B. Kono t To.
Education
Y. Mori t S.
Y. Mori t S.
H. E(Ye)nomoto
T.
B. E(Ye)nomoto
T.
A. Yoshikawa
Avva.
K. Oki t H.
Agriculture
and
Trade
K. Tani To.
H. Hisikata S.
K. Kuroda t S.
Kaorn Inouye
C.
M. I warn ura
To.
M. Mutsu t
Kii.
M. Mutsu t Kii
B. Kono t To.
T. Sano II .
Commerce
B. E(Ye)nomoto
T.
B. Enomoto T.
S. Got5 t To.
S. Goto t To.
S. Goto t To.
S. Goto t To.
Colonies
Classes to which ministers belong are indicated by the following abbreviations: C. = Choshiu, II. = Ilizen, Hi. = Higo,
(PARTLY FROM THE PERIODICAL "EAST ASIA" AND AFTER DR. TAKESHI KlTASATO.)
August 1892
to
August 1896
Sept. 1896
to
Dec. 1897
January 1898
to
June 1898
July 1898
to
October 1898
Nov. 1898
to
October 1900
October 1900
to
May 1901
June 1901
Hirobumi
I to C.
M. Mntsu-
kata S.
Hirobumi
Ito 0.
S. Okuma H.
A Yamagatn
C.
Hiroburni
Ito C.
T. Katsura
C.
H. Hisikata
S.
H. Hisikata
S.
H.HisikataS.
M.TanakaTo.
M. Tanaka To.
M. Tanaka
To.
M. Tanaka
To.
M. Tanaka
To.
M.Mutsu t
Kii.
S. 6"kuma H.
T. Nishi S.
S. Okuma H
Shuzo Aoki
C.
Komci Kato
Aiclii.
A. Sone C.
J. Komura S.
T. Nislii S.
Ka. Inouye C.
Y. Nomura C.
T. 1 tagaki To.
S. Kabayama
S.
A. Yoshikawa
Awa.
T. Itagaki
To.
Y. Saigo S.
Kencho
Suyematsu
Buzen.
Tadakatsu
Utsunii K.
Kunitake
Watanabe
Sh.
M. Matsu-
kata S.
Kaoru
Inouye C.
Masahisa
Matsuda H.
M. Matsukata
S.
Kunitake
Watanabe
Sh.
Kunitake
Watanabe Sh.
I. Oyama
S.
T. Takashima
S.
T. Katsura
C.
T. Katsura
C.
T. Katsura
C.
T. Katsura C.
Gentaro
Kodama 0.
Gentaru
Kodama C.
K. Nire S.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saigo S.
Y. Saig5 S.
G. Yarnanoto
S.
G. Yamanoto
S.
G. Yamanoto
S.
A. Yaniagata
S.
A. Yoshikawn
Awa.
K. Kiyoura
Hi.
A. Sone C.
G. Ohigashi
Omi.
K. Kiyoura
Hi.
Kentaro
Kaneko
Fukuoka
Kcigo Kiyoura
Hi.
Ki Inonye t
Hi.
K. Saionji K.
S. Hachisuka
Awa.
A. Hamao Ta.
K. Saionji K.
M. Toyama
1 T.
Yukio Osaki
Ise
K. Inukai Ok.
S. Kabayama
S.
Masahisa
Matsuda H.
Dairoku
Kikuchi
Mimasaka.
H. E(Ye)no-
inoto T.
B. E(Ye)no-
moto T.
S. Okuma H.
Shindo Ya-
niada t Hi.
Miyoji Ito
H.
Masami Oisbi
To.
K. Kaneko
Fukuoka
Arasuke Sone
C.
Yiizo Hayashi
To.
Tosuke Hirata
Akita.
K.Kurodat S.
S.Sliinuift C.
Y. Nomura
C.
Kencho
Suyematsu
Buzen.
Yuz5 Hayasbi
To.
A. Yoshikawa
Awa.
Toru Hoshi T.
Kei Hara
Wakamatsu.
A. Yoshikawa
Awa.
T. Takashima
S.
T. Takashima
S.
K. — Kioto (Kuge), Ok. =: Okayama, S. = Satsuma, Sh. = Shinano, T. =z Tokio (Tokugawa), Ta. = Tajima, To.=: TOSH.
"**] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 53
On the refusal of China to discuss the question, the English steamship " Kow-
shing" was sunk on July 25 by a Japanese war ship, though no previous declara-
tion of war had taken place, as the Chinese troops which she had on board for
Assan declined to surrender ; and on July 28 the Chinese troops were attacked by
the Japanese at Assan and defeated. The Japanese followed up their first advan-
tage with great determination ; a ministry was formed of their adherents in Seoul,
which concluded an alliance with Japan, and invited the Japanese to expel the
Chinese from the country. On December 15 the Japanese captured Phyeng yang,
on the 17th the Chinese fleet was defeated at the mouth of the Yalu, and on Oc-
tober 25 the Japanese crossed this river and defeated the Chinese for the second
time. While the army which had accomplished this success advanced into Man-
churia, where the campaign was soon brought to a standstill by the approach of
•winter, a second Japanese army landed on the east coast of the peninsula of Liau-
tung at the end of October, captured Talienwau on November 2, and stormed Port
Arthur on the 21st. This succession of defeats obliged the Chinese government
to open negotiations for peace ; however, the two Japanese embassies sent out in
November, 1894, and February, 1895, were recalled apparently for lack of full
powers to treat. At the end of January, 1895, a Japanese division crossed into
Weihaiwei in Pechili. On the 30th the land forts of this military harbour were
captured, and on February 14 the harbour and the Chinese fleet within it were
attacked by land and sea, and surrendered to the Japanese.
The Chinese government now determined to send Li Hung Chang to Japan to
conduct the negotiations. After long hesitation the Japanese declared themselves
ready to receive him. On March 18, 1895, Li landed in Shimoneseki, and was re-
ceived by the prime minister, Ito, and the minister of foreign affairs, Munemitsu
Mutsu (cf. the plate, "Japanese Cabinet from 1886 to 1902"), the real pro-
moter of the war. The first demands of the Japanese, who required the sur-
render of the forts of Taku, Tientsin, and the railway from Shanhaikwan to
Tientsin, before they would grant an armistice, seemed an insurmountable ob-
stacle to any negotiations. However, when Li, on March 24, was wounded by
a Japanese assassin, the mikado proposed an armistice upon the basis of the
status quo. On April 17 peace was signed at Shimoneseki, China recognizing
the independence of Korea, ceding Formosa, the Pescadores, and Liautung to
Japan, and promising payment of an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels (more than
£50,000,000). Meanwhile, the success and the demands of the Japanese had
given rise to serious anxiety in Europe. The possession of Liautung made Japan
practically mistress of China, and consequently destroyed the balance of power in
East Asia. Eussia, Germany, and France united in representations to Tokio (Eng-
land having declined to join their action). Japan then agreed to give back Liau-
tung on May 5, in return for an additional 30,000,000 taels by way of indemnity.
The treaty of Shimoneseki was formally completed by both parties, and Formosa,
the governor of which declared himself independent at the head of the Formosan
republic, was occupied without difficulty by the Japanese.
In Korea events had developed more unfavourably for the conquerors. Even
during the war revolts had broken out against the Japanese in different places,
and with the conclusion of peace the feeling against the interference of the
Japanese in the government became strongly marked in court circles and among
the higher government officials. An attempt which was made on October 8, 1895,
54 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
by certain Japanese in concert with the radical Koreans, and at the instigation of
the Japanese embassy, to produce an alteration in the feeling of the country by the
murder of the queen, proved a failure. On February 11, 1896, the king and the
crown vassals fled from the royal palace, took refuge in the Russian embassy, and
remained there until February 20, 1897. During this period agreements were con-
cluded between Japan and Russia in May, 1896, at Seoul, and in July of the same
year at St. Petersburg, by which each of the two powers was permitted to maintain
troops to the strength of one thousand men in Korea for the protection of its in-
terests, and each pledged itself in no way to interfere in the internal affairs of the
country. Thus, as far as Korea was concerned, the war between China and Japan
had enabled the powerful Russia to take the place of the helpless China, notwith-
standing the fact that the main object of the war in the eyes of the Japanese
military party had been to anticipate Russia in East Asia, and to check her ad-
vance in that direction.
(eT) Japan during Recent Years. — Considerable alterations were made in the
relations between Japan and foreign countries. The old conventions, concluded
upon the principle that foreigners were extra-territorial, were replaced by others
which brought the foreigners under the jurisdiction of the Japanese courts. Efforts
to bring about an alteration of the agreement in this direction began immediately
after the mikado's restoration. An embassy was sent out in 1871 for this purpose;
to the United States and to Europe, but returned without success. One of the
ministers for foreign affairs, Okuma, lost a leg owing to the attack of an assassin
during the progress of the negotiations. These led to no definite result, while popu-
lar feeling and attacks upon the government increased in Japan ; finally England
in 1894 consented to conclude a convention in accordance with the wishes of the
Japanese. The other powers followed her example. Thus since 1899 a new
principle became operative whereby foreigners were brought under Japanese
jurisdiction, and Japan was allowed entire freedom in the imposition of cus-
tom duties, with the exception of those which had been already arranged by
convention upon certain articles. The fears aroused by the introduction of these
innovations have as yet remained unfulfilled. At the beginning of 1902 Japan
made a further step toward equality with the western powers by concluding an
offensive and defensive alliance with England on the 30th of January, thus being
the first of the yellow races permitted to enter into a contract with a white power.
Only the future can show whether this moral support is likely to be followed by
the practical result of checking the eager advance of Russia into Manchuria and
upon Korea.
Upon the occasion of the outbreak of the Boxer revolt in China in the year
1900, Japan was prevented by the jealousy of individual powers and by financial
difficulties at home from playing that part which her geographical position and her
Chinese interests assigned to her of right; but it must be admitted that on this
occasion the military organisation of the country proved to be as sound as before,
and that the energy of the Japanese leaders and their troops materially contributed
t<o the timely relief of the besieged embassies in Peking. The attitude of Japan
upon the occasion of the unsuccessful attempt at reform of Kang Yu Wei in the
autumn of 1898 is not so easy to explain; at any rate, the presence of the prime
minister, Marquis. Ito (cf. supplement to p. 53),. though not at that moment in^
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 55
office, gives good ground for the theory that the attempt was supported by Japan-
ese advice.
The historian who attempts to explain the rapid collapse of the feudal system
in Japan upon considerations drawn from the condition of the country, must re-
member that if not all, yet the majority of official posts were hereditary both in
the district of the shogun and in that of the individual territorial lords, a fact
which largely contributed to lower the official capacity of these potentates. The
real power had for a long time been in the hands of the petty nobility, who
stood behind the scene and pulled the strings which moved the official figures.
These were the men who had brought about the revolution, who have turned it
to their own advantage, and to-day conduct the business of the empire with no
attempt at concealment. Although the revolution was set on foot by the nobility,
yet its character was necessarily democratic, if not demagogic. After the victory
over the shoguns, the privileges of the territorial lords, the court nobility, and also
of the Samurai class came to a rapid end, and if the mikado was spared, such
clemency was actuated mainly by the fact that his influence was indispensable to
success. But even at that time loud cries were raised for the proclamation of a
republic. Generally speaking the position of compromise adopted by the terri--
torial lords has brought them rather gain than loss : in place of a pretence of
power which they could only exercise within the walls of their castle and under
the restraints of the most narrowing ceremonial, they have acquired a rich income,
the title of nobility, and power to work or not as they please.
The great class of the Samurai came worst out of the revolution, in which they
lost their incomes and their influence, such as it was, and also their occupation.
Hence it is by no means surprising that this class manifested the greatest dissatis-
faction with the course of the movement from which most of them had expected
very different results ; it was therefore necessary to find them occupation as being
the most capable element in the population and the most inclined to revolutionary
courses. This fact has materially influenced the foreign policy of the government,
and was a leading motive in their decision upon the war with China and the expe-
dition to Formosa. Even at the present day this class remains the most influ-
ential, and must be considered as leading the new social development both on the
intellectual and on the material side. Partly by reason of their own energy, and
partly owing to the support of the government, which itself consists of former
members of the Samurai, the men of this class (now known as Shizoku) appear at
the head of most economic enterprises and edit most of the leading journals in
the country. The condition of the merchant handicraftsman and peasant has in
general advanced very little, and is to-day rather characteristic of old than of new
Japan.
We shall therefore be committing no injustice if we characterise this latest
phase of development as one confined within the limits of a comparatively small
circle, which has, however, been able to absorb many foreign elements and to
impose them upon the country. Japan never had a native civilization of any
importance whatever. What she borrowed from China brought upon the country
the Taikwa reforms, that is, the government of a strongly centralised imperial
power which gradually degenerated into military feudalism, remaining a monarchy
only in name. What she has borrowed from the West brought about the fall of the
feudal system and the nominal restoration of the imperial power, together. with >.
,56 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
government by clans, from which neither a free nor a party government has yet
been successfully developed, while the final consequence was the parliamentary
system of 1889. The results which will eventually follow all these influences can-
not as yet be predicted. In spite of the obvious external changes in the country,
many of its essential features are still those of old Japan. The new constitution
has not succeeded in producing any far-reaching innovations either in family life
or in commercial intercourse. The family and not the individual remains the
unit, and as Fukuda truly observes, the individual even at the present time is only
conceivable as a member of some family. The guilds and their official monopolies
have been removed ; but private companies for trade and manufacture exist to-day
with the same objects and probably with the same rights, though these are not
expressly stated. Few changes have taken place in the country population ; as in
early times, so now, it has no independence of its own, and though the system of
units of five families has decayed, yet it has been replaced by other associations of
a no less corporate nature and possessing an official status.
In one point only is there any material difference between the present and the
past. In the lower classes, especially in the country population, the 'old beliefs
and superstitions are maintained almost in their entirety, notwithstanding official
attempts at their destruction ; whereas in the so-called upper classes a complete
indifference toward religion has taken the place of the earlier official worship
which was a fusion of Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism. Buddhism has
fallen into disrepute partly owing to the action of the government ; Shintoism,
after fulfilling its political task of reviving the imperial idea, has relapsed as a
religion into insignificance ; and the indifferentism of the modern Japanese cannot
be said accurately to represent the teaching of Confucian morality. Ancestor wor-
ship alone, which is closely connected with Confucianism, and, with the Shinto
belief, still possesses some vitality ; this may be said to form the foundation
of Japanese ethics. Whether Christianity is destined to take the place of these
decaying religions is doubtful ; in any case, it will not be European nor American
Christianity, but a faith founded upon a thoroughly Japanese basis with a strong
leaning to rationalism.
2. CHINA
A. THE NAME
THE earliest name by which the Chinese themselves have called their country
is certainly " Tien Hia " (Under the Sky) ; " Sz' Hai (Everything within the Four
Seas) and " Chung l Kwoh " (the Kingdom of the Centre) are also early names.
Heavenly kingdom is the translation of " Tien Chau ; " that is, heavenly dynasty,
or the country over which the dynasty appointed by Heaven rules. " Chung
Hwa Kwoh " (the Flowery Land of the Centre) is usually a literary expression,
and is to be referred to the fact that the Chinese consider themselves the most
highly educated (Hwa) nation in the world. " Nui ti " (the Inner Land) is used
chiefly to distinguish China from foreign barbarian countries. " Li Min " (the
Black-haired Race) is an expression often used to designate the people ; the name
1 Pronounced Tshung. In all Chinese names the initial sound represented by CIi is to be pronounced
as Tsh.
'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 57
of " The Hundred Families " also occurs. The country is also designated by the
name of " Chung Kwoh yin" (People of the Central Kingdom) and as " Han yin "
or "Han tsze "(Men or Sons of Han). Under the Chin dynasty, 221 B.C., the cus-
tom appears to have come into force of calling the country and its inhabitants by
the name of the reigning dynasty ; however, the duration of this dynasty was too
short and the hatred of its founders too great for this title to become permanent.
On the other hand, as we have already observed, the names of other dynasties, such
.as the Han, the Tang, and the present Manchurian Ching dynasty, have become
•common expressions ; " Tang yin " (Men of Tang) and " Ching yin " (Men of Ching)
are constantly recurring expressions. The present dynasty calls the kingdom by
its own title, " Ta Ching Kwoh " (the Great Pure Kingdom) ; a common expression
is also " Ching Chau " (the Pure Dynasty). " Hwa Hsia " (the Glorious Hsia) is a
name to be referred to the ancient Hsia dynasty (2205 to 1769 B. c.), but came into
use only at a later period. The " Kitai " of the Russians and the " Kathay " of the
Persians are names derived from the Kitan Tartars who ruled in North China from
"937 to 1125 under the name of the Liau (Liao) dynasty. The Indian Buddhists
•call China " Chin tan " (the Morning Dawn). Manzi, or Manji, is the name of
Southern China, and has also been extended to include the whole of China since
the Sung dynasty were driven out of the north by the Mongols and took up their
residence in Hang Chau in 1227 A. D. as the southern Sung dynasty. Manzi was
the object of the expedition of Columbus (cf. Vol. I, p. 349). " Tung tu" (the
Land of the East) is employed as a name for China only by Mohammedan authors.
The origin of the name " China " is still entirely doubtful. That it is to be
referred to the Chin dynasty is extremely unlikely, in view of the evidence quoted
by Ferdinand Freiherr von Eichthofen. The same author denies the connection
•of the name with the Sinim of the Old Testament (Isaiah), the old Persian
Matshin, the Great Tshin, which was certainly a name for China in the Middle
Ages, and with Tshina, which occurs in the legal code of Manu and in the Mahab-
"harata. On the other hand, the various peoples of antiquity knew China as Yin,
Chin, Tsin, Tshin, Tshina, and Tzinistan. Richthofen considers that the name from
which all these appellations were derived was spread along the maritime trading
Toutes, and derives it from " Yi nan " (South of the Sun), by which name the
Chinese of antiquity designated Tongking and Cochin China, and perhaps also
Cambodia. The fact that Marco Polo speaks of the sea at Zayton (Kwang chau
fu, between Amoy and Fuchau) as the sea of Tschin, seems evidence in favour of
this theory. The name employed by the Romans, " Seres," may possibly be derived
from sze, sse, sser (the Chinese word for silk).
B. THE COUNTRY AND ITS POPULATION
(a) Configuration. — The enormous empire of China, with the two adjoining
•countries Manchuria and Mongolia (Dzungaria, Hi, and East Turkestan), has an
area of 9,881,100 square kilometres, of which 5,369,100 belongs to China proper,
942,000 to Manchuria, and 354,000 to Mongolia. The country is situated in the
east of Asia between 50° and 19° lat. K, and 75° and 132.5° long., east of Green-
wich. With the exception of the coast line belonging to the peninsula of Korea
and Russian East Siberia, the eastern frontier of the empire is bounded by the
three seas known as the China Sea, the Eastern Sea, and the Yellow Sea, all of
58 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter I
which are, strictly speaking, part of the Pacific. On the north and northwest China
is bounded by Russia ; on the southwest by Tibet, which is tributary to it ; on the
south by Tongking and Siam (see the map, " China ").
The only mountain range which has exercised any material influence upon the
historical development of the country is the Nan-ling (Southern Eange), an offshoot
of the Himalaya ; this mountain chain passes through Yunnan, forms the northern
boundary of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, traverses Chekiang, and after reaching the
sea, is broken into the Chusan Islands and other groups, thus cutting off the south-
east from the rest of China with a precipitous barrier broken by a few passes ; to
this fact is due the long independence and exclusiveness of this district. The
surface of China as a whole slopes from the west to the east ; the mountainous
country lies between the meridian passing through Canton to the frontiers of Tibet,
while east of this meridian and south of the Yangtsze Kiang the hill country
begins ; to the northeast of this river lies the great plain, the most fruitful part of
the country. The characteristic feature of Pechili, Shansi, Shensi, and Kansu is
the yellow loam soil which was first described in 1864 by Raphael Pumpelly, and
is supposed to be the deposit of fresh-water lakes. Richthofen is more probably
correct in his view that the loam was precipitated under atmospherical action^
with the exception of those places in the steppes where it appears as the deposit
of salt lakes .(lake loam). The loam is broken by precipitous gorges, which of ten-
reach a depth of many hundred feet and form a serious obstacle to communication.
They are, however, a certain advantage to the population, inasmuch as numerous
dwellings and often whole villages have been excavated in their walls. Where
there is a sufficiency of rain the loam is extremely fertile; but the inhabitants
have neither the means nor the knowledge for scientific irrigation.
In the geography of China rivers are of much greater importance than mountains,,
especially the three great streams which traverse the empire from west to east, the
Hoangho, Yangtsze Kiang, and the Chukiang. The Hoangho (Yellow River) has
so often burst its banks and flooded the country as to have been called " the
plague of China," and is said to have completely changed the lower part of its
bed no less than nine times ; it rises in the plain of Odontala south of the Kueulun
Mountains, and passes through North China for a distance of more than 4,800
kilometres. The district which it waters is about 1,211,700 square kilometres in
extent. The course of the Hoangho was apparently followed by the first immi-
grants whose descendants we' now know as Chinese, and in its valley the larger
part of ancient and medieval Chinese history has been worked out. Since 1852
the Hoangho has emptied itself into the Gulf of Pechili, though formerly it flowed
into the Yellow Sea south of the peninsula of Shantung. The nature of its bed
makes it of no importance as a navigable waterway.
The Yangtsze Kiang (so named only in its lower reaches from Nanking
onward, toward Yangchau) is known in its upper course as Kin sha kiang
(River of the Golden Sands), its central portion being called merely Kiang or
Takiang (River, or Great River), and from Wuchang onward it is usually known
as Chang-kiang (the Long River). It rises in the Tangla Mountains, hardly 160
kilometres from the sources of the Hoangho and the Kuenlun range. Its bed, which
is fully 5,100 kilometres in length, passes through the central Chinese provinces of
Szechwan, Hupei, Ngan-hwei, and Kiangsu. It waters a district of more than
1,402,000 square kilometres. It is also the most important line of communication
\^iPt ur>u, !Ji*f^
J^Mpi
(ASfc
JiHi-iiHii
"VL _^ I
I'rinli-a l.v tin-
Japan
INatural Scale 1:18500000
Scale ofifiles
The SJttj-baur-s open to foreign nations
are widerliiit'il -Telegraphs and GuNe.
sh, ((
.
_ Steian routes (B.) British, ((^German,,
TSWG TAT
The German settlement in
Biao clwtu B ay
Sat. scale 1:8000(T
(F.) French., (h)JmeriauL,(J)Japan. (Aus.)
sdies histiUit Leipzig
^] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 59
•in China ; towns such as Nanking, Hankau, Wuchang, Ichang, and Chungking are
situated upon this stream. As far as Hankau it is sufficiently deep to permit the
passage of large steamers, and its importance will be increased in this respect by
the construction of canals to pass the rapids between Ichang and Chungking.
The Chukiaug (the Pearl Eiver) rises in Yunnan, and is formed by the confluence
of the East, North, and West rivers, of which tributaries the latter, the Sikiang, is
the most important. The Chukiang passes through South China, and reaches the sea
near Canton; it waters a district estimated at more than 332,000 square kilometres.
(b) TJie Population. — Nothing certain is known of the origin of the Chinese
people. The theory that would refer their original ancestors to the time of the
Tower of Babel cannot be established by evidence, which is equally lacking for
the theories proposed by Terrieii de la Couperie and Robert Kennaway Douglas,
which would consider them as descended from the Accadians, relying among other
evidence upon the similarity of the earliest Chinese writing to the cuneiform script.
More probable is the view of Richthofen, that the original home of the first immi-
grants into China was in the valley of the Tailm, where they may have come into
contact with Accadian and Indian civilization. Such an origin, if proved, does not,
however, explain the great difference of the Chinese from all the other peoples
of Asia (as, for instance, in the entire absence of a priestly or military professional
class) ; still less does it explain the similarities (for example, the apparent existence
of a certain amount of astronomical knowledge at so early a period as that of the
Hsia dynasty). Equally difficult is it to discover evidence of their origin from
ethnographical inquiry. According to E. Baelz the main part of East Asia (the
greater part of China, Japan, Korea, Formosa, Mongolia, and Tibet) is inhabited
by a population of about 500,000,000 of Mongolian race, to which must be added
the peoples of Further India with the Malays. It is scarcely possible to draw a
definite line of demarcation between these and the Mongolians. In North Asia,
Manchuria, in the district of the Sungari River, in part of Korea and in a part of
the west coast of Japan, the Manchu-Korean type is predominant. In China we
also meet with the Miotse and the little known Lolo ; in Southern China and Japan
infusions of Polynesian blood can be traced, while a slight infusion of the woolly
haired negro appears at rare intervals. The true Mongolian is predominant in
Central and Southern China ; further south the Malay type becomes more prominent,
as does the Manchu-Korean in the north.
These facts are indisputable, but they do not help us to solve the riddle of the
origin of the Chinese or of the races which existed in the East at the time of their
migrations. Of such independent races which have either been exterminated 'or
absorbed by the Chinese, there may have been a great number, .though it is impro-
bable that any one of these races was considerable in its numbers. Mention is
made of the San Miau in the Shuking, the historical record of the time of Yao and
Yu (2145-2046 and 2255-2206 B. c.) ; and in a speech made by King Wu of Chau
(1134-1116 B. c.) against Chau hsin of Shang before the battle of Mu, he refers to
eight auxiliary peoples, the Yung, Shu, Chiang, Mao, Wei, Lu, Pliang, and Pho..
At a later period, between the eighth and seventh centuries B. c., mention is made
of eight tribes of the Dsung (Yung) who were western barbarians in Shantung,
Chili, Honan, Shansi, Shensi, and on the frontier of the kingdom. The Ti, who
were northern barbarians, dwelt in Shansi and Chili, the I barbarians of Shantung
60 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
extended as far as the Han Eiver, and the Man lived on the central and upper
Yangtsze, chiefly on the right bank. But the number of the tribes that had not then
been subdued must have been much greater ; even at the present day, more than
two thousand six hundred years later, tribes of original inhabitants in complete or
partial independence are constantly found in the southern and western provinces
of the empire. That such tribes as the Li (Limin or Limu, probably descendants
of the Miaotsze to whom Kublai Khan [Shi Tsu] is said to have assigned a part of
Formosa in 1292) should have held their ground in the interior of Formosa and
Hainan is the less remarkable, in view of the fact that even at the present day
whole tribes of original inhabitants have been able to maintain their independence
in the provinces on the mainland, where the Chinese supremacy has endured for
hundreds or thousands of years.
The Miaotsze are divided into sung (savage) and shuh (domesticated) according
to the amount of Chinese civilization which they have acquired, and live to .the
number of fully eighty different tribes in Kwaugtung, Kwangsi, Hunan, Yunnan,
and Kweichau. They are supposed to be relations of the Siamese and Burmese,
and possibly the Hakkas belong to the same race ; these foreigners are said to have
immigrated into the two Kwangs apparently at the time of the Mongol dynasty of
Kiangsu or Shantung, in 1205-1368. It was not until 1730 that the Miaotsze
in Yunnan and Kweichau were subjected to the Chinese supremacy, whereas in-
Kwangsi independent tribes still maintain their existence. The Yao or Yau yin,
also said to be members of the Miaotsze, lived in Kwangsi until the twelfth cen-
tury and then migrated to the peninsula of Liauchau, where they still continue a
half-independent existence ; in 1832 they began a revolt which was only suppressed
with difficulty. The other great group of original inhabitants which has main-
tained itself within the country is that of the Lolo in Szechwan and Yunnan, who
are thought to be related to the Kakyes, Shans, and Burmese ; they are also divided
into tribes which have made a nominal submission to the Chinese and tribes which
•decline to allow the Chinese a passage through their mountains, whence they
make raids upon the surrounding districts.
The fact that historical documents and ethnology give us no definite starting-
point for our investigations makes it necessary to turn to other sources of informa-
tion upon the degree of civilization attained at the time of their migration by the
ancestors of the mixed people who now inhabit the modern district of China. The
most reliable evidence is to be found in the earliest style of Chinese writing ; this is
of a hieroglyphic nature, and contains a number of signs (said to be six hundred and
eight, though really more) which are undoubtedly ideographic. The resemblance
between the original form of the signs and the objects which they represented is
clearly recognisable. The invention of this writing is said to belong to the legendary
period ; the hieroglyphic signs ceased, as early as the fourth century B. c., to be rep-
resentations of definite objects, and had become purely conventional. The meaning
of the earliest ideographs was usually modified by the addition of signs representing
the west, a sheep, a cow, and a woman ; the west and to return mean, to pass sentence
as a judge ; the west and the earth mean, victim of the ruler ; the west and a woman
mean, to wish or desire ; the west and the sign implying valuable mean, to buy or
to sell (objects of value from the west ?) ; a sheep and the sign for great mean,
good or excellent ; a sheep and the sign for the pronoun I mean, self-respect or
pride (the possession of sheep being a sign of distinction) ; a sheep and a man
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 61
mean, false (sheep stealer ?) ; a sheep and a prince or a guide mean, a herd or
crowd (the prince being the possessor of flocks) ; a sheep and the sign for words
mean, to investigate carefully, to discuss a matter ; a sheep and wings mean, to
hover, to look back, dignified, serious (a winged ram ?) ; a sheep and the sign for
ill mean, to itch or to scratch ; a cow and the sign for covering mean, security,
imprisonment ; two cows mean, friend ; a cow and the sign of avarice mean, to
appropriate (cattle-lifter ?) ; a woman and the sign for truth mean, insinuating,
persuasive, cunning in speech ; one woman above another means, beautiful ; a hand
over a woman means, secure, firm, in peace ; a roof over a woman means, quietness,
peace, or to be at rest ; two women together mean, to dispute or to quarrel ; corn
above a woman means, to be bowed under a heavy burden, to bear a weight, or to
be in office, to send some one to do something ; a woman with the sign for dirt
means, a wife and to obey ; a woman and the sign for to take mean, to marry ;
a man and a field mean, a husband.
If, with the help of the objects represented in the hieroglyphic writing,
together with the collocations above mentioned, the attempt be made to draw a
picture of the conditions which prevailed at the time when these signs were in
use, we may conclude that a nation migrated into the country from the West,
retaining many recollections of their old home, though these were somewhat
clouded; or that they were a people who derived whatever civilization they
had from the West, a people also who were in the stage of transition from
nomadic to agricultural life and settled habitations. Eiches, however, at that
time consisted chiefly of flocks and herds, and the possession of these implied
power and influence. The most common crimes were sheep-stealing and cattle-
lifting, and the health or the straying of sheep was the subject upon which
interest was chiefly concentrated. The woman, whom the man perhaps even
then carried off by force for marriage, was regarded as an inferior and jealous
creature, to be kept in stern subjection ; her business was the household cares and
the menial duties of the establishment. The man cultivated the field ; he was free
and respected ; the woman's lot was toil and seclusion. A highly developed wor-
ship (of spirits or ancestors) seems to have existed ; at any rate, the great number
of sacrificial vessels, in many cases of the same form as those used at the present
day, point to a comprehensive and extremely minute ceremonial.
C. THE MYTHICAL PEKIOD
ACCORDING to Chinese tradition, the world was developed from chaos, which
was formed like an egg ; from this came forth first the quickening power, the great
breath, the life (Tai Chi), by the influence of which the germ of life within was
awakened to life, when it divided into the male and female principle (Yin and
Yang). The male principle, which was pure, bright, and light, rose up and formed
the heaven; the unclean, dark, and heavy female principle sank downward and
formed the earth. Both of these principles are henceforward continually operative
in the work of destruction and renovation. After this division, there arises from
the parts (or is created) Panku, who is often represented with hammer and chisel
as forming the earth ; at the same time there is a tradition of him that after his
death his breath became the wind, his voice the thunder, his left eye the sun, and
his right eye the moon, his blood the rivers, his hair the trees and plants, his flesh
62 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
the ground, his sweat the rain, and the parasites upon his body the men. Panku is
the ancestor of the first race of rulers, the heavenly emperors, of which there were
thirteen generations; these were followed by the earthly race of eleven generations,
and the human race of nine generations. These in turn were succeeded by the age
of the five dragons (brothers), composed of Shih ti, with fifty-nine generations, of
Ho lo, with three generations, of Lientung, with six generations, of Su ming, with
four generations, and of Sun fei, with twenty-two princes, who exerted a formative
influence upon mankind by their examples.
The eighth age is that of Yin ti (thirteen rulers), the most prominent of whom
are Yu chao (the one living in a nest) and Sui yen. Sui yen, as the Chinese Pro-
metheus, produced fire by rubbing two sticks together, and is also said to have
discovered a means of communication by tying knots in string ; while Yu chao
taught men to build dwelling-places at the time when they had begun to eat flesh
instead of living upon a vegetarian diet, and had thus made enemies of the ani-
mals, which had hitherto been friendly to them.
The ninth age, that of Shan tung, includes five rulers, most of whom were
conceived and born in some miraculous way. Fu h(s)i (said to have lived from
2852 to 2738 B. c.), who is represented with the body of a snake and the head of an
ox, or of a man with two horny excrescences, taught men to fish, to tame the six
domestic animals, and to use them for the support of life. The dragon-horse
brought him on its back the writing of the Lo river, which is said to have led to
the discovery of the eight diagrams (Pakwa). Fu hi is said to have shared with
Tsangki, whom other authorities place six hundred years later, the honour of
discovering the first alphabet ; the introduction of family names and of musical
instruments is also ascribed to him. His successor, Shen nung (Yen ti ; said to
have lived from 2737 to 2705), the divine husbandman with the human body and
the ox's head, was the inventor of the ploughshare and discoverer of the five
cereals, the use of which he taught the people ; he also discovered the medici-
nal properties of plants and introduced markets and commerce by barter. He
was succeeded by seven more generations. The distinguishing feature of this last
age is the fact that the supreme power becomes hereditary in one family.
The duration of the mythical period, that is, until Huang ti (2404 B. c.), is esti-
mated by some Chinese authors at 2,264,777 years, and by others at one million
years longer.
D. THE LEGENDARY PERIOD
ACCORDING to some authorities, the legendary period continues until the age
of Yu, that is, until the beginning of the Hsia dynasty, 2205 B. c. ; according to
others, until the beginning of the Chau dynasty, 1112 B. c. As Karl Arendt observes
in his " Synchronistic Tables of Rulers for the History of the Chinese Dynasties," the
dates given by the different historians and annals show great discrepancies. For
instance, the Bamboo Books, which were discovered in 279 A. D. and consist of
tablets of bamboo found in the grave of King Hsiang of We, who died in 319 B.C.,
containing the mythical and the legendary history as well as the annals of Chin of
We, reduce the dates at the commencement by two hundred and thirteen years.
It is not until 850 B. c. that chronological harmony begins.
The age of Suh yi includes the following rulers : Huang ti, 2704 to 2595 B. c.,
resident in Chili; Sha Hao, his son, 2594 to 2511 B. c., resident in Shangtung;
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 63
Chuan hsu, 2510 to 2433 B.C., nephew of the preceding, resident1 in Pechili; Ti
Ku, his nephew, 2432 to 2363 B. c., resident in Honan ; Ti Chi, 2362 to 2358 B. c.,
son of the preceding, deposed ; Yao, 2357 to 2258 B. c., his brother, resident in
.Shansi ; Shun, 2258 to 2206 B. c., step-son of Yao, resident in Shansi. Fu hi, Shen
nimg, Huang ti, Yao, and Shun are often referred to as the " Five Emperors," a
name which is also applied to the whole age, although it contains a larger number
of rulers. The greater part of the history of this period is purely legendary. The
development of the people proceeded very slowly. Upon the evidence of the
Chinese themselves, civilization must have been at a very low level, as under
Huang ti the employment for a boat of a tree trunk, which had been hollowed out
and fitted with a mast, is mentioned as a new discovery. This king was also said
to have been the first to distinguish the five colours (green or red, blue, black,
yellow, and white), according to those of the birds and the flowers. An important
event, which marks the beginning of a long-enduring agricultural system resting
upon a political and social basis, is the division of the arable land into plots of nine
fields, each consisting of one hundred mau (675.68 acres). These fields were
divided into three rows, each row consisting of three fields, thus, 1 T, the eight
outer fields belonging to the people, while the central plot was appropriated to the
government, the necessities of which were represented by a special class of officials,
who were also entrusted with the supervision of the fields belonging to the people.
One such field was called a lin, three lin = one ping, three ping = one li, five li —
one i, ten i — one du, ten du — one shy, ten shy = one chau. From the chau (the depart-
ment or province) the later vassal principalities seem to have been developed.
To the rule of Shun belong the works of Yu, which formed the content of the
first paragraph in the third section of the Shuking, entitled " The Tribute of Yu ;
Yu Yukung." Many authorities, following the examples of Chinese expositors,
consider them as the narratives of a great flood and of the drainage works under-
taken by Yu. Kichthofen and others are probably more correct in considering
this section as of especial, though not of exclusively geographical, importance.
Yu, who secured by his energy the favour of the emperor Shun, received his
two daughters in marriage, and when the emperor's son showed himself unworthy,
was appointed his successor, and took up his residence in Shansi.
Yu was the first emperor of the Hsia dynasty, which includes seventeen legiti-
mate rulers, and lasted from 2205 to 1766 B.C. The period from 2118 to 2079,
during which the usurper Han Cho ruled, is the most eventful portion of this age.
Tai Kang, the grandson of Yu, a dissolute prince, was deposed in 2160, after a
reign of twenty-nine years; he was succeeded by his younger brother, Chung
Kang. Ti Hsiang, the son of this ruler, was conquered in 2199 by Hau Cho, who
murdered every member of the Yu family. The empress, however, succeeded in
escaping, and while in flight she gave birth to a son, Shao Kang, who, after many
adventures, killed the usurper in the year 2079. Ti Kuei, the last emperor of this
dynasty, and his wife, Mei Hi, are depicted as dissolute tyrants, whose rule was
ended in 1783 by Lu, prince of Shang, a descendant of Huang ti. However, it
was not until 1766 that Lu ascended the throne as Cheng Tang, and became the
first emperor of the Shang dynasty (also known as Yin since 1401), which lasted
until 1122 B. c. Little is known of the twenty-eight princes of this dynasty, most
of whom are merely mentioned by name in the annals. Cheng Tang (1766-
64 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter I
1754) who took up his residence in Honan, was a powerful and upright monarch.
Under his successors the capital was constantly transferred to different places in
Honan, and to Shantung, Pechili, and Shensi (near Singanfu).
The last emperor, Chau hsin (1154-1122), like the last of the Hsia, was a
cruel tyrant, and his consort Tan ki was of a none the less degenerate character.
He was overthrown by Wu wang of Chau. The hostility between the two families
seems to have been of long standing, and had at any rate existed since 1327, when
Tan fu, the " old duke " (Ku kung), had given his district the name of Chau. His
grandson Wen wang (King Wen), or Hsi po (chief of the west), made an attempt,
according to Chinese authors, though in vain, to convert the emperor to better
methods; he died in 1135. His son Wu wang finally opposed Chau hsin, and con-
quered him in the battle of Mu in 1122, after which the emperor burnt himself
alive in his palace, together with his wives and his treasures. Wu wang ascended
the throne in 1122 ; with him begins the Chau dynasty (until 249 B. c.). The
beginning of the historical period is usually placed in the year 875 B.C. On
August 29 of this year an eclipse .of the sun is mentioned as having taken place
during the government of the emperor Yu wang, which enables the date to be
accurately established. There is, however, no reason why the historical period
should not begin with the outset of the Chau dynasty.
E. THE KELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND CIVILIZATION OF THE ANCIENT CHINESE
(a) The Religion. — The ancient Chinese religion, the origin of which is
unknown, teaches of a supreme being, the heaven, Tien, incarnate as a supreme
ruler, Shang ti. The religion is, however, very far from being a pure monotheism ;
on the contrary, it peoples the universe with heavenly, earthly, and human spirits
which can exercise influence and receive worship. To the heavenly spirits belong
the sun, the moon, the planets, and some of the constellations ; to the earthly
spirits, the mountains, seas, streams, rivers, springs, trees, etc. There is, moreover,
a special guardian spirit of the empire, together with spirits of the soil. At an
earlier period for every principality, and now for every town and locality, there are
guardian spirits of agriculture, of the crops, of the herds, etc. To the class of human:
spirits belong the spirits of the deceased in their relations with the family, that is,
the ancestors and the spirits of famous men. The religion never had. and does not
now possess, a priesthood. The emperor is the high priest, and is obliged to perform
in person certain religious duties, such as that of offering prayer in the temple of
heaven, while there are others which he may leave temporarily or permanently to
his official representatives. In his double capacity as emperor and father of his
people he assumes responsibility to the heaven for the behaviour of his subjects,
and national misfortunes are considered as due to remissness on his part.
(5) The Philosophy. — Together with the religion, popular participation in
which depends solely upon the practice of ancestor worship, and the ceremonial
thereby implied, two philosophical schools of thought have existed from an early
period. On the one hand, the system of intuitive, metaphysical philosophy, from
which Taoism has been developed ; and an ethical political system, now known as
Confucianism. However, neither Lao tsze nor Kung fu tsze (in Latin form
Confucius) were the creators of -the teaching ascribed to them, or named after
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 65
them. On the contrary, both have expressly declared themselves to be merely
the preachers and the exponents of the teachings of earlier sages. As regards
Confucianism, an additional proof of this truth may be found in the fact that his
so-called classical works, commonly known as the " Five King " and " Four
Shu," and also often as the "Thirteen King," belonged to a much earlier time
than the life of Kung fu tsze.
The great classics can be enumerated as follows : 1. The Iking (book of
changes), which was destined to expound the eight trigrams composed of whole
and broken lines, and the sixty-four hexagrams, further developed from these,
which were used for purposes of foretelling the future. These symbols, which
belong to the mythical period (cf. p. 61), are certainly older than the thirteenth
century B. c. Wen wang of Chau, the father, and Chau kung, the brother, of the
first emperor of this dynasty, are said to have produced the explanations of these
symbols preserved in the Iking. The remaining ten sections of the work are,
probably in error, ascribed to Kung fu tsze. 2. The Shu king (the book of histo-
rical records), contains the remnants of a much larger collection of historical events
and examples, extending from 2357 to 627 B. c. The composition of this work is
also ascribed to Kung fu tsze ; but the first mention of his authorship occurs in
the second century B. c., three hundred and fifty years after his death. Moreover,
Kung fu tsze during his life never played that part which was afterward assigned
to him by Shi Huang ti (220-210 ; cf. below, p. 75), at a time when scholars
desired a leader round whom they could form a party. After his death, a
temple was erected to him on the order of the duke, in Lu, the principality of
his birth, in which sacrifice was offered four times a year. But it was not until
the year 1 A. D. that the emperor Ping Ti, of the older western Han dynasty, con-
ferred upon him a supplementary title of honour, and offerings were made to him
in all the imperial schools, for the first time, in the year 57 A. D. Until 609 A. D.
he shared this honour with Chau kung, the duke of Chau, and the first temple
was dedicated to him outside the province of Lu, in 628. However, no dynasty
has done so much in his honour as the reigning Manchu dynasty. 3. The
Shi king (the book of songs), contains three hundred and five songs, which
may perhaps be called national odes and festival songs for different occasions,
belonging to the period of 1765 to 585 B. c. The Shi king is also assigned
to Kung fu tsze, no doubt erroneously. In any case, the Shi, and also the
Shu, existed long before his time. 4. The Chau li, the State institutions (the
State calendar) of the Chau dynasty, is said to belong to the twelfth cen-
tury B. c. Like most of the other books, it was lost during the Chin dynasty,
and not rediscovered until the year 40 A. D. 5. The Hi (book of ceremonies), in its
present form consists of two texts which were rediscovered in the second century
A. D. The Hi is mentioned by Meng tsze. But a book of this name certainly
existed at the time of Kung fu tsze, if not before him. 6. The Liki (also a book
of ceremonies), is a work apparently belonging to the second century A. D., contain-
ing earlier explanations of the questions treated of in the Hi. In this work is
contained the so-called calendar of the Hsia dynasty, which, if it were genuine,
would provide us with astronomical dates two thousand years before the Christian
era. 7 to 9. The Chun chiu (chronicle of Kung fu tsze), properly autumn and
spring, that is, the book of annals, contains the chronicles of the Chinese kingdom
from 722 to 484 B. c., arranged according to the reigns of the princes of Lu. This
VOL. II— 5
66 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
work, ascribed by Meng tsze to Kung fu tsze, is a dry and incomplete chronicle,
a mere skeleton, which has been clothed with interest by the additions of the
three expositors, Tso chiu ming, Kung yang, and Ku liang. 10. The Lun Yu, con-
tains the conversations of Kung fu tsze, proverbial sayings of the sage collected
by his pupils. 11. The works of Meng tsze, according to some authorities the
work of the philosopher himself, who lived from 371 to 288 B. c., while others con-
sider it as the composition of his pupils. It is, at any rate, a collection of the
sayings of this master. 12. The Hsiao king (book of filial love), is said to have
been composed by Tsze sze, the grandson of Kung fu tsze, from conversations held
by Kung fu tsze with one of his pupils. It treats of questions concerning the ful-
filment of the duties of filial affection, and also of the relations between master
and servant. 13. The dictionary Urhuya of the year 500 B. c., also contains por-
tions which are supposed to date from the thirteenth century. 14. The Tahio
(great teaching), also ascribed to the grandson of Kung fu tsze, teaches the duty of
practising virtues, educating the people, and continuing in perfection. 15. The
Chung Yung (the unalterable mean), a work of the grandson of Kung fu tsze,
teaches that whatever man has received from heaven is his nature, and that he
who acts in harmony with it walks in the path of virtue, and that man can only
learn this path by instruction. Every one, especially the prince, must exert influ-
ence by example, and to be able to use these influences he must strive for
perfection. The way to this end lies, however, in the mean. 16. The Tshu shu
(the Bamboo Books), the origin of which has already been mentioned (p. 62). These
bamboo tablets, inscribed with more than one hundred thousand signs, contained,
besides annals, a copy of the Iking and thirteen other works, in part of a highly
imaginative character. A book that, though not authentic, is highly esteemed
for the large mass of tradition it relates, is the Kung tsze kia yu (sayings of Kung
fu tsze among his pupils), dating from the third century B. c.
Most of the works above mentioned, with the exception of the Iking, the works
of Meng tsze, and the Urhya, were lost in the general destruction of books
which took place under Shi Huang ti (cf. p. 75), and some of them were not
rediscovered for a considerable period. In many cases they were recovered in an
incomplete state, or in different and discrepant texts. The industry of collectors
and expositors has restored as much as was possible. But Chinese critics consider
many of the passages, officially recognised as genuine, to be doubtful or false.
However, the classical works of the Chinese in their present state must be con-
sidered as representing a faithful picture of the ages in which they were composed,,
or, any rate, of those ages as they appeared to the later Chinese.
The other school of thought, Taoism, possesses no ancient works beyond the
half-legendary Tao teh king, ascribed to Lao tsze, the book of the way and of
virtue. Lao tsze (the old youth), whose true name is said to have been Li R, is
said to have been born in 604 B.C., and to have disappeared in 517, after a meet-
ing with Kung fu tsze, which can hardly be historical. In the Tao teh king are to
be found many quotations, introduced with the words " a sage," " an old man," a
fact which proves that the teaching of Lao tsze cannot have been new. What Lao
tsze advocates as resulting from the wisdom of earlier periods is complete
abstinence and introspection, . The meaning of the word " Tao " has never been
explained or understood. Like the Hellenistic "Logos," it is at once the effi-
cient and the material cause. Lao tsze says of the Tao, " It was undetermined and
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 67
perfected, existing before the heaven and the earth. Peaceful was it and incom-
prehensible, alone and unchangeable, filling everything, the inexhaustible mother
of all things. I know not its name, and therefore I call it Tao. I seek after its
name, and I call it the Great. In greatness it flows on for ever, it retires and
returns. Therefore is the Tao great." Another passage has led critics to sup-
pose Hebrew influence. " "We look for the Tao, but we see it not ; it is colourless.
We hearken for it, we do not hear it ; it is voiceless. We seek to grasp it, and can-
not comprehend it ; it is formless. That which is colourless, soundless, and form-
less cannot be described, and therefore we call it One." The fact that colourless,
soundless, and formless in the Chinese text are represented by Ji, hi, wei, has led
Abel Re*musat, Victor von Strauss, and Joseph Edkins, in opposition to the views
of almost all other Chinese scholars, to assert that Lao tsze was attempting to
express the Hebrew Jehovah. It is more probable that Indian influence, though
this fact is equally impossible to prove, gave the impulse to the development of
this intuitional teaching. As regards his cosmogony, Lao tsze takes his stand upon
the ancient Chinese teaching. " The Tao brought forth One, One brought forth
Two, Two brought forth Three. Three brought forth everything. Everything
leaves behind it the darkness out of which it came, and goes forward toward the
light, while the breath of the void makes it perfect ; " that is, from the original
chaos, which contains the germs of life, but as being incorporeal is called the void,
there are now developed the male and female principles, which create dead matter,
represented by its three highest appearances as heaven, earth, and man, to which
the breath gives life.
To summarise the further development of Taoism, its most flourishing period
was that of contest against Confucianism and sharp criticism of Kung fu tsze.
Kwang tsze, Lieh yu kan (in Latin, Licius), and perhaps also Chang Chu, place
rather too great an emphasis upon Epicurean and Cynic tendencies, but as thinkers
stand high above Kung fu tsze and also above Meng tsze (Meng ko, Mencius, 371
to 289 B. c.), who is himself far in advance of his master. But as early as the period
of Meng tsze, Taoism seems to have taken upon itself the alchemist and necro-
mantic character, which has since been its dominant feature. It thus became a
very superficial system of teaching, and the Tao priests turned their attention from
the pursuit of philosophy to the exploitation of superstition. Where, in spite of
these disadvantages, the doctrine was able to influence princes and statesmen, it
has always proved an obstacle to healthy development.
Taoism, though originally on a higher intellectual plane than Confucianism,
thus sunk far below it, while the dry worldly wisdom of Kung fu tsze and his
school maintained its old position, and to the present day exercises undiminished
influence upon the Chinese. Confucianism teaches the art of becoming a good
father, official, minister, landed noble, and emperor, of fulfilling the duties con-
nected with a man's position, and of seeing that subordinates, children, and people,
as well as officials, perform their duty likewise. Beginning with the love of the
child for his father, and concluding with the love of the emperor for his people,
the philosophy of this school embraces the whole range of human relations,
and has thereby gained a hold upon the life and conduct both of individuals
and of the community which has remained unshaken to the present day (cf.
p. 68, above).
68 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter!
i
(c) The Civilization of the Ancient Chinese. — -Taoism and Confucianism are
proofs of a high degree of intellectual development. The great exponents of these
schools bear witness, and the fact is confirmed by the evidence of the Chinese
classics, that this development began long before the days of Lao tsze and Kung
fu tsze. It must have been founded on a widespread civilization and a relative
high degree of culture. In the Chau li, I li, and Li ki we find proofs of the exist-
ence of a comprehensive and detailed system of administration. The rights and
duties of every class of the population are prescribed to the smallest details. Every
season has its appointed tasks. Full provision is made for the observance of all
ceremonies connected with funerals, receptions, the dedication of temples, festivals,
drinking feasts, archery, etc. The relations of parents to children and children to
parents are detailed in full form and ceremony.
Great attention was paid to the equipment and evolutions of the troops, to
which orders were transmitted by signal. Two-wheeled chariots, both open and
closed, and harnessed with one, two, three, and four horses side by side, were in
common use. In war, chariots were used drawn by two horses and carrying three
people, — the charioteer, a spearman, and an archer. The emperor takes the field
with ten thousand chariots. Cavalry does not seem to have been employed in the
earliest period, though pictures of cavalry conflicts are found belonging to the
second century A. D. The arms in use were the spear, the halberd, the sword,
the club, and the axe, the bow and arrow and crossbow. The defensive armour
apparently consisted of a small shield, and, in early times, of leather harness. Th>
last was afterward replaced by chain and mail armour.
In the arts of peace the Chinese had also made great progress a thousand years
at least before the Christian era. There are in existence at the present day vessels
of bronze which date from the Hsia, Shan, and Chau dynasties. The book called
"Po ku tu lu," the first edition of which belongs to the years 1119 to 1126, and
the " Si tsing Kan kien," a work published by order of the emperor Kien lung in
1759, and describing his collection of antiquities, contain numerous illustrations of
these vessels. They display excellent workmanship and rich ornamentation. Ani-
mals are often represented ; numerous examples of palaces, great and small, are
met with. A large number of beautiful works of art in nephrite are also in exist-
ence, especially sacrificial vessels and plates, with ornaments for the extremities of
chariot poles. The art of silk weaving seems to have been highly developed, and
the attention devoted to it at the courts of the emperor and the princes must have
exercised a beneficial influence upon its progress. Little is known of the art of
pottery as practised by the Chinese. Proofs exist of the production of pots and
tiles of clay in the second and third centuries B. c., but there can be no doubt that
earthenware had been made at a much earlier period. Porcelain ware, on the
other hand, does not appear before the sixth or seventh century of the Christian
era (cf. p. 113).
We have no certain knowledge concerning the invention of written characters.
It appears from the Chau li, which probably belongs to the twelfth century B. c.,
that in the ninth year of that century the historians of the different principalities
met together in the capital for the purpose of reducing pronunciation and written
signs to a common standard. According to a lexicographer of the twelfth cen-
tury A. D., the Tai tung, the first powerful princes of the Chau dynasty, reduced the
prevailing confusion to order and uniformity. In the " Unalterable- Mean," a work
w
E
H
Z rn
O
H
oo ^
KH H P
£ ^ «
[~* "^ -S
8*2
w d :
hH : s
JH < u
w§ I
06 O
CQ n,
O
H
W
ffi rt
C/> u
Z ri
p— i —
W
o
1-1 H
o d
< <
W D^
O M
W
W K
w w
s
o
Q
O
.EXPLANATION OF THE OLD CHINESE SCULPTUBE IN KEL1EF
At the foot of the mountain range Wu die shan (Ts'c yun shun), in the department of Kia
siang (Shantung), lies the extensive burial place of the \Vu family, which flourished in the second
century A. D. The tombs are of the highest importance for our knowledge of early Chinese
sculpture.
Wu ting (Kao Tsung, 1324-1266) ; twentieth emperor of the Shang dynasty; reputed ancestor of
the Wu family
Wu (names unknown)
Wu She kimg Wu Suei tsung (heang) Wu King hiiig Wu K'ai ming, general
t 151 A. D. in the province Wu
I , I
r n r n
Wu Chung chang Wu Ki chang Wu ki li Wu Sinen chang Wu blau ho
? (Pan) * 115, 1 145 (Jung) 1 169
Wu Tse-Kiao as commander of
Tuen-hang (Kansu)
The monuments erected by the four sons to their common father (whose name is not given),
and the memorial to Wu Pan, who died prematurely, have aroused the attention even of the modern
Chinese, on account of the bas-reliefs, which give an accurate, description of life and manners
under the later or Eastern Han dynasty. In 178(i, casts were made of the sculptures in relief by
Hoang J (Siao sung), which were added to by Li K'o clieng and Liu Chao yung in 1789 and
again in 1820.
As regards the character of this relief work, Edouard Chavannes observes : " The figures and
objects are flat, but are raised about two millimetres above the surface of the background ; one
might say that they had been cut out with a pinking-iron, and then fastened upon a level surface.
Shadows and detail are indicated by grooves." Cf. also the section upon " La Pierre sculptee '
in Paleologue's " L'Art chinois " (Paris, 1887).
The bas-reliefs reproduced overleaf are upon the sixth stone of the nearer burial vault, which
is 2 metres in length and 0.8 metres in height. The illustration is divided into two parts of
unequal size.
Upper Division : The last two carriages on the left are, as the inscriptions tell us, those of
the scribe and of the military commander. At the left extremity are three nobles on horseback ;
one of the horses, boldly but rudely designed, is turning its head back. On the right (beyond the
limit of our reproduction) a man is holding a shield and sword, and a second a cross-bow ; a
kneeling woman appeal's to be asking mercy.
Lower Division : A battle is in progress on level ground, on a bridge, and on a river with
boats, at the same time. On the right (barely visible in our illustration) are to be seen, as the
inscriptions tell us, the carriages of the chief of police, of the taxgatherer, and the scribe; on the
left, those of the chief receiver of taxes and of the chief of the scribes.
(Mainly after Edouard Chavannes, " La Sculpture sur Pierre en Chine an Temps des Deux Dynasties
Han." Paris, 1895.)
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 69
belonging to the fifth century B. c., mention is made of the. fact that it was the
emperor's prerogative to arrange use and custom, establish standard weights and
measures, and determine the signs of the alphabet. From that time onward it is
said that all the chariot wheels throughout the kingdom were of the same shaj >e,
and that all writing was executed with the same signs. Tablets of bamboo were
used for writing even after the period of Kung fu tsze. The signs were first cut
into these and then painted over with a composition of lacquer. The invention,
or, at any rate, the general use, of the camel's-hair brush dates from the year 220
B. c. At a later period silk and other cheaper materials were employed. The use
of paper made of the bark of trees, hemp, rags, and old nets, does not appear before
105 A. D. ; and it can be proved that silk also was in use until the year 418 A. D.
Of special interest for our knowledge of early Chinese civilization are the
remains, existing in different parts of Shantung, of the interior lining of tombs.
The two main centres of these discoveries are upon the Wu tsze shan and on the
Hiao tang shan. In other parts of Shantung these slabs appear separately or in.
twos and threes. They date from the second century A. D., probably between the
years 147-169 and 125—137. However, references in the classics make it cer-
tain that the art of sculpture in low relief was widely spread throughout China
during the second century B. c. The scenes represented upon the interior lining of
the above-mentioned tombs, which are chiefly known to us through the researches
of Edouard Chavannes, are most exclusively taken from the Chinese classics, but
their great variety affords a characteristic picture of ancient China. They afford
representations of chariots, riders, battles, hunting, fishing, imperial receptions, and
of solemn processions with elephants, camels, and apes (see the plate, "Ancient
Chinese Stone Relief ").
Certain representations of palaces with rich decorations on the outer walls
provide us with a complete explanation of a poem by Wang Wen kao, composed
in the second half of the second century A. D., upon the " Palace of Supernatural
Splendour." This was erected at Lu in Shantung by King Kung, the son of the
emperor king (154-140 B. c.), in the second half of the second century B. c. Wang
describes the palace as follows : " High above on the upper beams are barbarians
in great number ; they appear to observe the rules of courtly behaviour by kneel-
ing down, and they are looking at one another ; they have great heads and the
fixed look of the vulture; they have enormous heads, with deeply sunk eyes, and
they open their eyes wide ; they seem like people who are in danger and are
afraid; attacked by fear, they knit their eyebrows and are full of uneasiness.
Divine beings are upon the summit on the roof tree ; a woman of nephrite is
looking down below at the window. Suddenly the gaze is troubled by an uproar
and a crowd of figures, as if demons and spirits were there. All kinds and a whole
company of beings are represented, those in heaven and those on the earth, the
most different objects, the most remarkable miracles, the gods of the mountains,
the spirits of the sea. Their pictures are there. With red and blue colours the
thousand figures and their ten thousand transformations have been represented.
Everything has its place and its own character ; through the colouring each is like
to its kind, and by art their being has been expressed. Above we are taken back
to the great separation (of the two elements out of chaos) and to the beginning of
the earliest antiquity. There are the five dragons with two wings ; Jen hoang,
with his nine heads, Fu hi, with his body covered with scales, Niu kwa, in form a
70 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
•mail above and a snake below. Chaos is huge and without form ; its appearance is
rough and unworked. And here appear, blazing with light, Hoang ti Tang and
Yu ; they have the chariot hien and the hat nien ; their mantles and clothes are of
different materials. Beneath we see the three dynasties (of Hsia, Yu, and Chua) ;
here are the favoured wives of the emperor, the chiefs of the revolts, the true sub-
jects and the pious sons, the famous men and the virtuous women, the wise and
the stupid, the victor and the conquered ; there are none that are not represented.
The bad examples are there to inspire posterity with abhorrence for the bad, while
for the instruction of posterity the good are there." The palaces represented upon
the slabs of the tombs are ornamented with birds (peacocks, pheasants, bustards,
owls, 'geese, and crows) and apes at play, also with a falcon swooping upon a hare.
These animals are seen upon the roof tree and upon the broad, roof-like covering
of pillars, standing apparently by themselves ; other slabs contain representations
of fabulous beings of a mythical period, and portraits of the early emperors and
heroes which resemble those described by Wang.
F. THE ANCIENT HISTOKY OF CHINA
(a) The GTn.au Dynasty (1122 to 249 B. C.). — The home of the ancestors of
the Chau was originally situated in the neighbourhood of the modern Pinchau, in
the central part of the Ching River, a tributary on the left bank of the Wei, which
again runs into the Hoangho. Hard pressed by the Ti barbarians (p. 59), whom
he was unable to appease either by presents or payment of tribute, Tanfu, the first
duke of Chau (p. 62), settled in the year 1327 B. c. in the Chi Mountains (Chi shau),
on the south, half way between the Ching and the Wei. His son Wen wang then
removed the capital yet further south to the right bank of the Wei, on the Feng,
near the modern Singanfu in Shensi. A supposition that the people and the
dynasty of the Chau were of Tartar origin is highly probable, and the theory is
further supported by the fact that the State religion in their period was largely sub-
ject to Shaman influences. Witches and sorcerers had an official position under
the Chau ; they accompanied the prince everywhere, and hardly any State or family
- business could be transacted without previous consultation with them. Human
sacrifices (at funerals), which are mentioned in the Sinking, in the Liki, and in the
works of Meng tsze, and are heard of under the early rulers of the present Manchu
dynasty (middle of the seventeenth century), may also be referred to Tartar
influences.
(a) The History of the Chau until GOO B. C. — The creation of a large number
of feudal States by the first and second rulers of the dynasty is perhaps to be
referred to the necessity which they felt for strengthening their own power by
attaching relations and servants to their persons, and also to their desire to gain
friends among such nobles as were then in existence. Fiefs were granted to
fifteen brothers of the first ruler, to the descendants of the Five Emperors, and
to other rulers and deserving statesmen, numbering fifty-five in all. In addition to
these there existed, or were created, a large number (apparently eighteen hundred)
of great and small immediate officials of the empire. The size of the fiefs was pro-
portionate to the rank of the recipients, and seems to have varied between one
•hundred li for princes and counts, and fifty for the common nobility. Of the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 71
greater fiefs, of which one hundred and twenty-five are known to us by name, Chi,
Lu, and Tsao were situated in Shantung, Yen in Pechili near the modern Peking,
Tsui, afterward divided into Chao, Han, and We, in Shansi ; all of these were
north of the Hoangho. To the south of this river in Honan were Chen, Cheng (at
first in Shensi), Sung, Tsai, and Wei; Chin (Tsin) was in Shensi, to the west of
the great curve made by the Hoangho ; on the central Yangtsze in Hukuang was
Chu ; finally, Wu was situated in the modern Kiangsu, and Yue in Chekiang.
The creation of these feudal States led to the eventual downfall of the dynasty ;
the great territorial lords increased their power at the expense of the imperial
authority, and made their strength felt at first in family disputes within their own
principalities, and afterward in struggles between the different feudal States.
The first sign of a change in the relations between the emperor and the princes
was a revolt in Lu and the ascent of Tsi to the throne, after murdering his brother
(1039), to which act of aggression the emperor Chao wang offered no opposition.
Mu wang (1001 to 946) plays a great part in the later Taoist literature. Appar-
ently an expedition which he actually carried out against a tribe of the Jung
gave rise to the story that he paid a visit to Si Wang mu, the mother of the west-
ern emperor who lived in the Kuenlun. This visit the Bamboo Books relate with
many imaginary details. Li wang (878 to 827) was driven out of the kingdom
in 842 by his people on account of his dissolute behaviour, and spent the rest of
his life in exile, while the government was carried on by his ministers. His son
Hsuan wang (827 to 782) undertook in person, or through his generals, a number
of campaigns, directed principally against the frontier peoples who had revolted
from China during his father's rule ; these he again reduced to subjection.
With his son Yu wang (781 to 771) the "historical" period begins. To his
reign belongs the story of the beautiful girl of Pao, Pao sse ; she was sent as a
present by the prince of the small vassal State of Pao, which the emperor proposed
to subdue, and soon succeeded in completely entangling him in her toils. The
Chinese historians relate that in order to get a smile from his lady, the king one
•day had the signal fires lighted which were to bring up the troops of the vassal
States to his help. She certainly laughed to see these troops thus fooled ; but a
few years later an incursion of the Jung took place, and upon this occasion the
princes disregarded the signal, and the emperor, with his lady love, was slain by
the enemy. His son and successor, Ping wang (770 to 720), removed his residence
to the eastern capital of Tung tu in Lo yang, which had been previously founded
by Cheng wang, a son of Wu wang (1115). With him begins the period of the
Tung Chau, that is, the eastern Chau. Chinese history then becomes rather the
history of struggles between the different feudal States than that of the imperial
house, which was itself in a state of great confusion.
(/3) Kung fu tsze. — Kung fu tsze (Confucius, cf. p. 64) belonged to a collateral
branch of the family of the Shang emperors. He was born in the principality of Lu,
in the reign of Ling-wang (571-544) and in the year 550. By the influence of the
Ki family, one of the three chief families of the principality, upon which he seems
to have been to some extent dependent, Kung fu tsze received an official post at an
early age, which, however, he resigned about 517 for the profession of teacher. He
gathered about himself a number of younger scholars from the great families;
attended by these followers, he travelled about the country and also visited the
72 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
capital There, according to a later tradition, he is said to have met Lao tsze, who
was older than himself, and held the post of overseer of the treasury. After his
return to Lu, quarrels broke out between the three most powerful families in the
principality, the Ki, Shuh, and Mang. The duke was driven out in consequence,
and Kung fu tsze followed him into the neighbouring principality of Tse. ] icing
unable to obtain any appointment there, he returned to Lu; after fifteen years
he was given a position in this province as chief official of the town of Chung tu.
Afterward he became assistant to the chief inspector of public buildings, and
finally minister of justice. In these three posts he is said to have performed
excellent service, but he ultimately succumbed to the machinations of his adver-
saries, who had made a strong impression upon his duke by a present of sixty
beautiful dancing and singing girls. It is more probable that the family of Ki,
which had appointed him, also brought about his dismissal when they saw that
Kung fu tsze was attempting to overthrow the power of the great vassals in the
principality and to destroy their fortified towns. To the influence of this family
the fact is also to be ascribed that Kung fu tsze, after wandering through the
empire for many years without obtaining any appointment, was at length (483)
allowed to return to Lu in old age and feebleness. There he died in 478 B. c. at
the age of seventy-three, his temper soured by the disappointment of all his hopes.
His last words were, " No wise ruler appears ; no one in the whole kingdom desires
my advice : it is time for me to die."
Kung fu tsze was a characteristic product of his age and his country ; he was
careful to confine his teaching to those relations between man and man arising out
of the intercourse of daily life, and to this fact is due the permanence of that influ-
ence which he has exerted upon his compatriots. One of his later commentators
says of him : " Confucius preferred to deal with the usual and the normal, not with
the abnormal nor the extraordinary ; he spoke of what can be attained by energy and
persistence, and not of achievements due to superhuman strength ; law and order,
not anarchy and intrigue, were his subjects ; he spoke of human affairs, and left the
supernatural alone. He taught the meaning of the principles laid down in the
writings of the ancients, and enjoined conformity with these, together with morality
of life and fidelity to ethical principles." To the question of one of his pupils
whether there was any one word which might be taken as a general rule for behav-
iour throughout a man's life, he replied, " Is not reciprocity such a word ? " When
another pupil disputed whether or no evil should be repaid with good, he an-
swered, " Wherewith, then, shall good be repaid ? Eepay evil with justice, and
good with good." Here he shows himself as representative of popular opinion.
(Lao tsze in the Tao teh king transgresses the golden rule), as he does when
expressly confirming the principles of blood vengeance, which prevailed in China,
at that period and long afterward.
There is nothing exceptional in Kung fu tsze's adoption of the profession of a
teacher, or in his wanderings from one princely court to another. Before and since
his time, teachers have traversed China, generally with a strong following of pupils
and adherents, amounting in many cases to several thousands ; they may, perhaps,
be compared with the Jewish prophets, with the Brahman and Buddhist sages and
the Greek philosophers. Half rhetoricians, half politicians, they were anxious for
appointments and occupation at the courts of the princes. They were never will-
ingly received, on account of their haughty demeanour and their claims to superior
73
knowledge, and perhaps even less willingly in view of their desires for material
advantage. To the princes and often to the population they were a burden, as they
were the abhorrence of the professional statesman. Generally, even in cases where
they had found recognition for the moment and practical employment, they were
not long able to maintain their ground, and succumbed to the machinations of the
native nobles and official families who were struggling for power in every small
State. " After the death of Kung fu tsze," so runs the history of the earlier Han
dynasty (210 B. C.-24 A. D.), "his teaching came to an end, and after the death of
his seventy pupils [this number includes, no doubt, only the chief of these] his
doctrines were distorted. There were a great number of different texts of the Shu
king, of the Shi king, and of the I king ; during the disorders and quarrels in. the
period of warfare between the States, truth and falsehood became yet more
confused, and great disorder reigned throughout the doctrines of the different
philosophers."
(7) Meng tsze. — Meng tsze (Mencius) first appears during this period of the
decay of philosophy and the empire. He, too, was born in Lu, in 371, and was a
descendant of one of the three great families who shared the power of that prin-
cipality at the time of Kung fu tsze, though they had by this time lost their position
and become impoverished ; so far his career was similar to that of his prototype.
At an early period he gathered a number of scholars around him in his native
State, who, according to the custom of the time, contributed to his maintenance in
proportion to their means ; but in 331 he gave up this peaceful existence, and set
out with his pupils to begin a career of political reform at the courts of the smaller
principalities. He occupied an unimportant post? in Tse until the year 323, appar-
ently with no great success, and then travelled to Sung, Su, Tsao, Tang, and Leang,
ultimately returning to Tse ; eventually he travelled back to Lu in the year 309,
discouraged and undeceived. Here he lived in retirement, and died forgotten and
unnoticed in 289 B. c.
Meng tsze was undoubtedly a man of much greater energy and importance
than Kung fu tsze ; nevertheless, more than thirteen hundred years elapsed before he
received official recognition (1088 A. D.) and was given a place, though only a fourth
in rank, among the scholars in the temples of Kuiig fu tsze. At this time his
works were included among the classics (p. 65). This official disregard is by no
means in harmony with the respect with which he was regarded in literary circles
from the second century A. D., and is, no doubt, to be ascribed to the fact that
whereas Kung fu tsze supported the supremacy of the imperial house, and con-
demned any transgression of the narrow limits of ceremonial duty by one of the
imperial princes as unjustifiable presumption, Meng tsze, on the other hand, had
observed the weakness of the existing dynasty, which indeed collapsed forty years
after his death, and propounded the opinion that the imperial throne belonged by
right to the worthiest. Moreover, in his teaching the people were the first consid-
eration. " The people," he says, " are the chief element in a country ; after them
come the deities of the arable land and the corn, while the ruler is the least impor-
tant of all." In his explanation of the passage in the Shu king, " The heaven sees
as my people see," Meng tsze observes that the heaven is not speaking for itself.
If the leader who is in power rules well, this is a proof that his power has been
given him by the heaven ; should he rule badly, some one will arise to take his power
74 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
from him. It was for this reason that the founders of the Chan dynasty had over-
thrown the last unworthy monarchs of the Shang dynasty, and in this act had
shown themselves the instruments employed by the heaven. Meng tsze even asks
King Suen, at whose court he then was, to follow this example and to overthrow the
Chau dynasty, which had shown itself unworthy of the throne. Naturally such
principles were not likely to predispose rulers of that or of later periods in favour
of the man who publicly proclaimed them. However, the principles which he
preached proved a material counterpoise to the absolutist tendencies of Chinese
rulers. The vigour of intellectual life in China at his time is shown by his dis-
cussion of the question whether human nature is good or bad, by his opposition
to the demands of the socialists of the period that every one, the prince included,
should procure what was needful for his own maintenance, that is, should sow,
reap, and prepare for harvest* by his refutation of the teaching of Mi Tih upon
•" universal love," that is, benevolence toward all, and also by his refutation of the
principle enunciated by the Taoist Chan Chu, " Every man for himself," and by his
philosophical dissertations on the doctrine of predestination, on filial affection,
and many other subjects. Perhaps in China as in Germany the system of petty
States which limited the political horizon of the people and of the princes proved
favourable to the development of .science.
(8) The Fall of the Chau. — The power of the imperial house had been weak-
ened both by the struggles between the princes of the empire and by family
disputes and consequent quarrels about the succession, which often resulted in
revolt and murder; it was no longer capable of interference in the continual
struggles between the vassals of the empire. The results of these struggles, which
began at the outset of the fifth century B. c. and ended in 221 B. c., can be seen in
the following summary drawn up from the lists of Arendt : Sung conquers Tsao
in 487, and is conquered by Chi in 286 (Chi is conquered by Chin, 221). Chu
conquers Chen in 478, Tsai in 447, Chi in 445, Yue in 334, Lu in 249, and is
conquered by Chin, 223. Yue conquers Wu in 473, and is conquered by Chu in
334 (Chu conquered by Chin, 223). Han divides Tsin with Chao and We in 376 ;
conquers Cheng, 375, and is conquered by Chin, 230. Chao (later Tai) divides Tsin
with Han and We in 376 ; is conquered by Chin in 228, as also is Tai in 222.
We divides Tsin with Han and Chao in 376 ; is conquered by Chin in 225. Chi
conquers Sung, 286, and is conquered by Chin in .221. Chin conquers Han in 230,
Chao in 228, We in 225, Chu in 223, Tai and Yen in 222, Chi in 221, and annexes
Wei in 209.
(b) The Chin Dynasty (320-306 B. C.). — The State which ultimately emerged
victorious from this universal struggle and overthrew the imperial house of the
Chau was that of the Chin. The new dynasty, like the old, was profoundly
affected by Tartar influence. Fei tsze, the ancestor of the clan, had been overseer
of the stable of the emperor Hsiao (909-895) of the Chau dynasty, and had been
invested by him with the district of Chin. His son ruled as count of Chin from
857-848 ; the first duke was Po (847-845), and the first king of Chin, Hui wen
(337-311). In 256 B. c. Nan wang, the last ruler of Chau, abdicated in favour of
Chao Hsiang of Chin ; his second successor, Chuang Hsiang (249-247), deposed
the regent of the eastern Chau, the last scion of the imperial family, in 249, and
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 75
thereby brought the dynasty to an end. His successor in Chin subdued (246-221)
the States of Han, Chao, We, Chai, Tai, Yen, and Chi, which had hitherto been in-
dependent, and in 220 B. c. ascended the throne of the united kingdom under the
title of Chin Shi Huang ti, the first (illustrious) emperor of the Chin dynasty.
Shi Huang ti, one of the greatest princes of China, enjoys a very bad reputation
among the Chinese. This is due to two events for which he was responsible, — the
"burning of the books" and the building of the great wall. Sze ma tsien (163-85
B. c.) in his " Historical Eecords " has given a dramatic description of the events
which preceded the destruction of the classics ordered in the year 213 B. c. From
this destruction only the books of medicine, of fortune-telling, and of agriculture,
and the works of Meng tsze, are said to have been spared. The truth probably is
that the emperor desired to put an end to the criticisms of the literary classes, who
were continually referring to the traditions of the past, and therefore ordered the
destruction of the works containing these traditions. When this edict produced
no satisfactory result, he determined upon the execution of the culpable literati.
More than four hundred and sixty learned men who had retained the proscribed
books instead of surrendering them for destruction, and had spoken evil of the
emperor, were buried alive, and the edict was carried out with the utmost severity
against all suspicious persons. The edict was issued at the instigation of the
minister Li sze. It was to the effect that all chronicles, with the sole exception
of those of the house of Chin, together with all copies of the Shi king, of the Shu
king, and the books of the Hundred Schools, should be burned ; any one who did not
deliver up his books was to be branded and sent to hard labour on the great wall.
We can easily understand that the laudatores temporis acti were troublesome, and
perhaps appeared dangerous to the man who had been the first to put down the
dangers of the vassal system with a strong hand, and to save the kingdom from
the disruption into which it would have fallen without his family and himself ;
moreover, similar measures had been employed at an earlier period in China by
conquerors and usurpers, or at any rate had been directed against the records of
the principalities which they had subdued.
Since the last years of the fourth century B. c. ancestors of Shi Huang ti had
built isolated fortifications against the Hu, as also had the princes of Chao and
Yen against the same enemy and against the Jung, who now appear under the
name of Hiung nu. Shi Huang ti probably did nothing more than unite these
isolated fortresses into one. The great wall so constructed was an earthen ram-
part forming a protection against the incursions of mounted freebooters, with a
length of twenty-five hundred kilometres, extending from Minchau on the east of
Lunchaufu in Kansu as far as Pechili, and perhaps as far as the sea, where a wall of
later date now ends at Shanhaikuan. He did not, however, begin the construction
of this wall until he had driven back the Hiung nu with a great army ; the erection
of the great wall was consequently rather a triumphal monument than a work of
defence. The retreat of the nomadic races on the north and west further westward,
and the resulting invasions of West Asia and Eastern Europe, are more easily expli-
cable as a consequence of a revival of strength in China and of her advance, than by
the existence of the wall. It is impossible to say how much credence may be given
to the reports of the fabulous numbers of men employed in the construction of the
wall; according to Chinese authors, only convicts were employed upon the work.
Popular ideas upon the subject are, however, well illustrated by the fact that in
76 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter z
the recollection of the people the time of the building of the great wall lives as the
-only period when the birth of a daughter was an occasion for joy, as daughters could
not be sent to work upon the wall.
Shi Huang ti (220-210) also built a castle in Hsienyang, near Singanfu, the
famous O fang kung. The chief hall in the upper floor is said to have been large
enough to contain ten thousand persons, and standards fifty feet high could be set
up in the under rooms. Bound these rooms galleries ran ; a high causeway led
from the castle to the ridge of the mountain lying to the south, where a similar
construction passed over the river Wei to the capital. One of the palace gates is
said to have been made of loadstone ; if a warrior in mail armour or any one with
arms concealed about him attempted to pass the gate he was rooted to the spot by
the loadstone. A similar legend referring to the action of the loadstone upon
iron appears at a later time in the history of the popular hero Chu ko liang (181-
234 A. D.), and is no doubt to be referred to Indian sources. If the legend about
Shi Huang ti does not also belong to a later time, it may contain a reference to
his regulations for the general disarmament of the people. Of the arms collected
upon that occasion bells and twelve statues of the barbarians are said to have been
constructed ; most of the latter were apparently broken up in the year 192 A. D. and
coined into cash, though some survived until the third century A. D.
For the maintenance of the Chin dynasty and the continuance of the work
begun by its first emperor a supply of capable men was an indispensable necessity.
Shi Huang ti died in the year 210. His funeral was celebrated with great solem-
nity, and a number of his wives and servants, and the labourers who had been
employed upon the tomb, are said to have been buried with him. His elder son
Fusu had been set aside in the arrangements for the succession, and the throne fell
to the younger son, under the title of Erhshi Huang ti, or second emperor. How-
ever, at the same moment pretenders arose in all the vassal States which his
father had subdued, and though at the outset the imperial armies fought success-
fully, they were afterward defeated. Finally (207 B.C.) the eunuch Chao Kao
murdered the emperor, and set his nephew Tsze Ying upon the throne ; he, how-
ever, after sixty-four days surrendered the power to Liu Pang of Pei, who had been
an official, and afterward became the first emperor of the Han dynasty. Thus the
Chin dynasty came to an inglorious end in the year 206.
(c) The First or Western Han Dynasty (206 B. C.-8 A. D.\ — The period of
the Han dynasty may be described as a time of literary reaction, and also, if the
Tartar origin of the preceding dynasty, or at any rate their Tartar tendencies, be
taken into account, as a period of national reaction against foreign rule and influ-
ence. The founder of the dynasty had to pass through a severe struggle before he
succeeded in establishing peace and order throughout the kingdom. In all the
thirty -six districts of the kingdom pretenders had arisen and assumed the title of
kings ; the least at which they aimed was independence of the central power. Liu
Pang was originally a peasant of the modern Kiangsu, and owed his influence to a
rich marriage. At the head of a body of rebels he had made himself duke of Pei ;
he formed an alliance with Hsiang Chi, the " tyrant or royal protector " of the
Western Chu (Honan and North Ngan-hwei), and the nephew of Hsiang Liang
(f 206), who as early as 209 B. c. had revolted against the house of Chin ; and the
two allies were successful where Hsiang Liang had failed. The last of the Chin,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 77
Tsze Ying, surrendered to Liu Pang the insignia of the empire ; but the latter was
unable to cope alone with Hsiang Chi, who had put to the sword, if report be true,
the whole army of the Chin in 206 (two hundred thousand men), which had sur-
rendered to him. Liu Pang, therefore, procured his appointment as king of Han by
Hsiang Chi. Hsiang Chi, or "Pa wang," first murdered Tsze Ying and afterward
I Ti (Prince Huai of Chu), whom he had set up as nominal ruler of the princi-
pality ; Liu Pang then revolted against him, and conquered him after a long
struggle. In 202 Pa wang committed suicide, and Liu Pang ascended the throne,
under the name of Kao Tsu (or Kao Ti), as the first emperor of the Han dynasty.
(a) From Kao Tsu to Ching Ti. — Kao Tsu .(202-195) is considered to
have been a kind and upright prince. He was, however, continually forced to
struggle against rebel nobles to whom, in opposition to the policy of the Chin, he
had assigned districts of their own; and he died of wounds received in one of
these campaigns. The injustice and cruelty committed in his reign is ascribed
to the action of his consort, the empress Lu hau. Her son Hui Ti (194-188)
succeeded his father Kao Tsu ; but under his reign and that of his successor, his
adopted son Shao Ti, as also under Prince Hung of Hengshan, whom the empress
set up after dethroning Shao Ti, the power of the empress became unlimited ; she
is the only woman who appears in the Chinese lists of rulers as an empress (187—
180). Her object seems to have been to secure the possession of the throne to her
family ; but after her death Prince Hung was deposed, and Chau Po, an old ad-
herent of Kao Tsu, slaughtered all the members of the Lu family, and gave the
throne to the son of a concubine of Kao Tsu, who had hitherto lived in retirement
under the title of prince of Tsai. The new ruler assumed the name of Wen Ti
upon his accession.
Wen Ti (179-157) appears to have done his best to increase the prosperity of
the nation. He abolished the prohibition upon the books, which had become a dead
letter since the time of Kao Tsu ; he created a system of general liability to mili-
tary service which obliged men between twenty-three and fifty-six years of age to
serve upon the frontier, and he founded military colonies at the great wall. In
place of the " Five Punishments " (branding, cutting off the nose, mutilation, cas-
tration, and death) which had been in use since the time of the Chau dynasty, he
introduced the punishments of shaving the head and of flogging, and reserved the
death penalty for the most serious offences ; he also abolished the law which in the
case of certain crimes punished the family of the guilty man. Under the successor
of Wen Ti, his son Ching Ti (156-141), a great revolt of the chief vassals broke
out, which was only suppressed with difficulty. With the most powerful of these
nobles, Chao To, who had lived as prince of South Yueh in Kwangtung and
Kwangsi after the fall of the Chin dynasty, disputes frequently occurred, which,
iiowever, were always peacefully adjusted. In the year 196 B. c. Chao To recog-
nised the supremacy of the emperor Kao Tsu ; a revolt under the empress Lu hau
added the province of Hunan to his possessions. He died in the year 137 B. c.,
at the age of more than one hundred ; his grandson, who succeeded him, was sub-
dued by Wu Ti, the son and successor of Ching Ti.
(/3) Wu Ti. — Wu Ti (140-87) is certainly the most important ruler of
this dynasty, although he seems to. have been entirely in the hands of the Taoists,
78 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter I
who had then sunk to the position of mere alchemists and diviners. On the other
hand, he greatly furthered the development of Chinese literature by the support
which he gave to authors by the organisation of public examinations, the founda-
tion of an academy and a library, and a discussion and rearrangement of the
ceremonial which forms an important part of the Chinese education. He also
introduced the custom of year mottoes (nien huao), that is, the designation of
longer or shorter periods of years by a name considered to be of good omen, such
as " eternal peace." Events which occur in such a series of years are dated as hav-
ing happened in the first, second, or following years of the " eternal peace." In
early times these mottoes were constantly changed (Wu Ti employed eleven in
the reign of fifty-three years). From the time of the Ming dynasty the emperors
employed only one such motto throughout their reign, by which they were known,
at any rate to foreigners ; instances are Yung lo and Wan li (Ming), Kang Hsi,
Kien Lung, Kwang Sii (Manchu).
Chinese chronology is usually reckoned by cycles of sixty years, each of which
is designated by a name composed of two signs (words), one of which is taken from
the ten signs of the Heavenly Branches and the other from the twelve signs of
the Earthly Twigs. These are taken in order, so that the first ten Heavenly
Branches coincide with the first ten Earthly Twigs ; then the first of the former
coincides with the eleventh of the latter, the second of the former with the twelfth
of the latter, the third of the former with the first of the latter, and so on, until the
ten Heavenly Branches have been repeated six times and the twelve Earthly
Twigs five times, so that the full number of sixty conjunctions has been attained.
This system was at first exclusively used for fortune-telling, and its invention is
ascribed to Ta Nao, an official of Huang Ti, in the year 2697 B. c. ; however, the
first cycle does not begin until the year 2637 B.C. For chronological purposes
(for the identification of any one year) the cyclic system is said to have been intro-
duced for the first time under the Han dynasty, by the usurper Wan Mang (330-
323 B. c.). However, there are many traces of its earlier use ; the two earliest dates
thus determined occur in the years 1753 and 1122 B.C. The employment of the
twelve signs of the Animal cycle for chronological purposes, that is, for a cycle of
twelve years, seems to be of Tartar origin, and to have been first employed under
the Tang dynasty (618 or 628-907). It did not, however, come into general use
until the Mongol dynasty (1206 or 1280-1367), though Chinese historians profess
to detect traces of the use of this system under the Han dynasty. By this
system mention is made of events as happening in the year of the rat, etc. The
signs of the Chinese animal cycle are the rat, the ox, the tiger, the hare, the
dragon, the snake, the horse, the cath, the ape, the cock, the dog, and the pig.
Wu Ti appears to have paid special attention to securing the permanence of
his rule. He again broke down the power of the great vassals, and in the year
106 B. c. replaced the seventy-four districts into which the kingdom had gradually
been divided, by thirteen provinces. These were (1) Sy li Chiao Wei, the north-
western part of the modern Shansi ; (2) Yu, the modern Honan ; (3) and (4) Chi
and Yen, parts of Shantung and Pechili ; (5) Hsu, parts of Shantung and Kiaugsu ;
(6) Tsing, the eastern part of Shantung ; (7) Ching, composed of Hupeh and
Hunan; (8) Yang, composed of Kiangsu, Kiangsi, and Ngan-hwei; (9) I, parts
of Hupeh and Szechwan ; (10) Liang, parts of Shensi and Kansu; (11) Ping, part
of Kansu; (12) Yu, parts of Pechili and Liautung; (13) Chiao, composed of
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 79
Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Tongking. It appears from the above statement that
the most populous and therefore the most important part of the kingdom was then
situated on either bank of the middle and lower Hoangho. Chinese accounts esti-
mate the district ruled by the first Han dynasty at 145,136,405 Ching (1 Ching
= 100 Mau) ; 8,270,536 Ching of this total are said to have been arable land.
Here it is to be observed that the estimate of 1874 only gives 7,368,050 Ching,
of arable land, and the last estimate preceding that date, 8,150,188 Ching, both of
which totals are considerably less than that of the second century. The chief
source of income for the government was at that time the property tax, which was
levied to the extent of one-fifteenth of the produce of the land. At times this
was reduced to one-thirtieth, and was even remitted entirely in years of famine, or
in districts through which the emperor had passed on his journeys. The occupant
was himself responsible for the declaration of his assessment, and false information
was punished by death. Payment was made in kind, and also, under the later
Han dynasty, in woollen cloth and silk. The thirteen provinces were subjected to
an equal number of travelling inspectors, the predecessors of the later governors.
Wu Ti also strove to extend the power of his kingdom abroad. Campaigns
undertaken against the Hiung nu in the years 123, 121, and 110 led to successful
results, though not so the campaign of 99. Korea was subdued between the years
108 and 106, and a part of it was for a time incorporated with China. The em-
peror's efforts to extend China's influence westward appear to have led to the
despatch of various embassies ; of these the best known was that of General Chang
kien, who was sent to the Yuetshi (Yueh Ti= Getae ?), who were continually at war
with the Hiung nu. The latter captured the general and kept him prisoner for
many years. When he was at last released he was again despatched to Ta yuan
(Ferghana) with diplomatic proposals, and also to Si Yu (Turkestan) in the year
122. By his intervention, diplomatic and commercial communication was begun as
early as 115 with thirty-six States situated in those districts. The States of An hsi
and Ta tsin, which are more frequently mentioned from this period, are identified
by Friedrich Hirth with Parthia and Syria (the capital, Antu = Antioch).
(7) From Chao Ti to Ju tsze Ying. — Wu Ti executed his legitimate consort,
together with the heir to the throne, for their share in a supposed conspiracy against
himself, and appointed the son of one of his concubines as his successor, the mother
of whom he forced to commit suicide, in order that she might not become a second
Lu hau. Little need be said of the later emperors of this dynasty : Chao Ti (86-74),
HsUan Ti (73-49), Yuan Ti (48-33), Cheng Ti (32-7), Ai Ti (6-1 B. c.), Ping Ti (1-5
A. D.), and Ju tsze Ying (6-8 A. D.). Home affairs were made up of family and harem
quarrels, and disputes about the succession, which often led to revolts. On the other
hand, Chinese influence abroad seems to have increased ; at any rate, ambassadors of
the Hiung nu appear more constantly and more regularly at the court. The mother
of the emperor Cheng Ti belonged to the Mang family, the members of which
gradually gained control of the administration until the year 8 A. D., when Wang
Mang deposed the last representative of the western Han, who was only six years
of age, and proclaimed himself emperor, under the title of " Hsin " (new dynasty).
(S) The Influence of the Western Han upon Literature and Architecture. — The
efforts of the first Han dynasty to revive interest in Chinese literature (cf. p. 76) seem
80 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
to have been successful. As regards the classical works alone there were in ex-
istence 294 collections (fragments, sections ?) of the I king, 412 of the Shu king,
416 volumes of the Shi king, 555 collections of the Li ki, 165 of the treatise upon
music, 948 upon history, 229 of the Lun Yu, 836 of the orthodox sages, as well
as other works within the imperial library. Such emperors as Wu Ti did a great
deal to arouse and maintain interest in the literature of the country.
In other respects the age of the western Han must be considered as one of
especial brilliancy. Apart from all the descriptions given by Chinese historians
of the palaces and gardens of the emperors of this time, much yet remains to
arouse our astonishment. A great advance in architecture had been made under
the Chin dynasty (of. p. 74), but this was far surpassed by the Han emperors, and
by Wu Ti in particular. At the outset of the second century B. c. the emperor
Kao Tsu built a town and palace in Changan, which is said to have been sixty-
five li (about thirty-three kilometres) in extent, with twelve gates and sixteen
bridges, and surrounded by a lofty wall of earth thirty-five feet high. The town
existed until the year 582 A. D., and was then abandoned by the emperor Wen Ti
of the Sui dynasty, who removed the capital to Siuganfu. Parts of the wall are
still in existence. In this town was situated the palace of the empress Chao yang,
formerly a famous dancer, under the name of Chao Fei yen (Chao = the flying
swallow). The emperor Cheng Ti had taken her into his harem in 18 B. c., and
made her his consort in 16 B. c. The palace rooms are said to have been painted
with cinnabar red, the ceilings were in red lacquer, the component parts of
the walls were clamped together with gilded copper, and the stairs were of
marble. The beams were carved with dragons and snakes, and the walls were
decorated with pearls, precious stones, and the blue feathers of the kingfisher, as
well as with golden hanging lamps. All the curtains were made of pearls, and
the windows and folding doors of glass. A great palace built by Wu Ti is said to
have contained a number of buildings more than five hundred feet high, connected
by lofty galleries in such a manner that the emperor could pass from one to an-
other over the town as well as across the moat. On the roofs of the palace, on the
temples and the gates, stood great copper statues of men, partly gilded, with statues
of the phoenix (used as weather-cocks ?), and of other monsters. We also hear of
bronze and stone figures of men, of unicorns and other animals, of astronomical
instruments and large bells, and of a whale carved of stone, thirty feet long, in an
artificial lake, which the emperor had made for the exercising of his soldiers and
for the pleasure of the women of his harem.
(d) The Period of the Usurper Wang Mang, and the Time of Anarchy (9-?4
A. D.). — Wang Mang, the nephew of the consort of the emperor Yuan Ti, had been
appointed commander-in-chief in the year 6 B. c. Upon the death of the emperor
Ai Ti, in the year 1 B. c., the widow, who was left as regent, handed over the
government to Wang Mang, and m the following year he received the title of
Ducal Protector of the House of Han. In the year 3 A. D. he married his daughter
to the emperor Ping Ti, who was still in his minority. He poisoned the emperor
in the year 5 A. D., and induced his daughter, who was childless, to adopt the great-
great-grandson of the emperor Hsiian Ti (cf. p. 79), who was then two years old.
In the year 8 A. D., he deposed this ruler, and proclaimed himself emperor. He
then reintroduced the old redistribution of the Chau into plots of nine fields
*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 81
(p. 63), and abolished slavery. The dissatisfaction aroused by these innovations
was aggravated by the increased taxation which a great campaign against the
Hiung uu made necessary. A revolt that broke out in 19 A. D. was suppressed.
A second movement, however, led by two descendants of the house of Han, Liu
Huan and Liu hsiu, was more successful. Wang Mang, after suffering several
defeats, was murdered in the year 23 by his own troops.
(e) The Later or Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 A. D.). — Dissensions and
struggles broke out among the rebels and other pretenders. Li Huan, who had
declared himself emperor on the death of Wang Mang (according to others, he
ruled on behalf of the prince of Huai Yang, whom he had appointed emperor),
abdicated two years later in favour of Liu hsiu. The latter was a descendant of
the emperor Hang Ching Ti (156-141 B. c.), and ascended the throne in 25 A. D.,
as the first emperor of the later or eastern Han dynasty. The larger part of the
reign of this " Shi Tsu " (or Kwang Wu Ti, 25-57) was occupied with warfare
against the other pretenders to the throne. It was not until the year 37 that Lu
fang, the last of his opponents within the kingdom, was conquered, while in the
year 41 an invasion of the ruler of Cochin China was successfully repulsed. The
second half of the reign of this emperor seems to have been so peaceful that he
expressed his thankfulness by making solemn offerings on the Taishan, one of the
five sacred mountains in Shantung. It was under his son Ming Ti (58-75), and
in particular through the action of his younger brother, Ying, that Buddhism was
enabled to make its entry into China (cf. below).
The emperors of this dynasty are of little account. Most of them, including
Shang Ti (106), An Ti (107-125), Chung Ti (145), Chi Ti (146), Huan Ti (147-
167), Ling Ti (168-189), and Shao Ti (189), ascended the throne as children under
the regency of their mother, an arrangement which naturally favoured harem
intrigues. In 189, when the eunuchs abducted the young emperor Shao Ti
and his brother from the capital, the general, Yuan Shao, hastened to the rescue,
and apparently exterminated the abductors. Internal dissensions and wars against
the Hiung nu, the Man, and other tribes upon the frontier, provided an opportunity
for ambitious soldiers to acquire power and influence upon the government. This
was misused in their own interests, so that the second half of this dynastic period
is almost entirely occupied with the intrigues of usurping ministers, and with
revolts against them. In the earlier years of the dynasty much attention was paid
to literature. In 175, the text of the Five Classics was definitely established,
carved in stone, and set up at Loyang in Honan, the capital of the dynasty (the
first Han dynasty had resided in Changan). The second Han dynasty comes to an
end with Hsien Ti (189-220), but long before his abdication the rising of the
" Yellow Turban " rebels, and the formation of the three kingdoms of Shu (South-
west China), under Liu Pei, of We (Wei, North China), under Tsao Tsao, and Wu
(Southeast China), under Sun Chuan, had made a practical end of the emperor's
power (cf. p. 87).
G. BUDDHISM IN CHINA
(a) The Historical Development of the Buddhist Doctrine in China. — The
introduction of Buddhism was an event of the highest importance for the moral
VOL. II — 6
.82 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
development of China, and is the most striking event of the rule of the Han
dynasty, and indeed in the whole of China's history. An unauthenticated account
states that Indian missionaries had entered China as early as 217 B. c., and in 122
B. c. a Chinese expedition is said to have advanced beyond Yarkand, and to have
.brought back a golden image of Buddha. Communication between China and
India becomes very frequent from this date. Knowledge of the foreign doctrine
entered the country, and in the year 61 A. D. the emperor Ming Ti sent messengers
to India to bring back Buddhist books and priests. This step may have been urged
upon him by the Taoists, who thought to find the Buddhist doctrine of retirement
from the world in harmony with their own views, though legend relates that the
emperor followed the monitions of a dream. At any rate the priests were brought,
and one of them, Kashiapmadanga, translated a Sutra in Loyang. Toward the
.end of the second century A. D. another Indian in Changan translated the " Lotus
of the good law."
The development of Buddhism seems to have advanced somewhat slowly
at first. Not until the beginning of the fourth century do we hear that men of
Chinese birth had begun to take upon themselves the vows of Buddhist monks.
In 355 a prince of the house of Chau at the time of the eastern Tsin gave his sub-
jects permission to take this step and in 381 the emperor Hsaio Wu Ti built a
pagoda in his palace at Nanking. At the same period large monasteries were
erected in North China, and nine-tenths of the common people are said at that
time to have embraced the Buddhist teaching. The kingdom of Tsin (south-
ern Shensi and Kansu) seems to have been the chief centre of Buddhism, and
here, in 405, a new translation of the sacred Buddhist books was brought out.
An army seems to have been sent to India, and to have brought back Indian
teachers to Changan, who there undertook the work, aided by eight hundred
other priests, and under the emperor's personal supervision. Communication be-
tween India and China was constant at that date. Numerous travellers went
southward, returned with sages and books, and wrote the story of their travels.
Thus Fa Men describes the flourishing condition of Buddhism in Tartary, among
the Uigurian races to the west of the Caspian Sea, in Afghanistan, on the Indus
in Central India, and in Ceylon. It was from this island that he returned by
sea to Changan in the year 414, after an absence of fifteen years ; and he then
devoted himself, with the help of an Indian scholar, to publishing the books he
had brought back.
In the year 420 the Tsin dynasty fell ; it was replaced in the north by the Tar-
tar We, in the south by the native dynasty of Sung. The princes of the two new
dynasties at first displayed an aversion to Buddhism. In We the erection of tem-
ples and statues was strictly forbidden, and the priests were persecuted. In 426
a decree was issued for the destruction of books and statues, and many priests were
executed in the course of the persecution. But after the death of the first emperor
these orders were rescinded, and in 451 permission was given to erect a Buddhist
temple in every town ; forty or fifty of the inhabitants were allowed to become
priests ; and the emperor himself shaved the heads of some of those who devoted
themselves to the priesthood. Similarly the persecutions of the Sung princes soon
ceased, and their government gained a reputation for the special favour which it
showed to Buddhism. Embassies arrived from Ceylon and from Kapilavastu (the
birthplace of Shakyamuni), all of which referred to the uniformity of the religion,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 83
and sang the praises of the Sung emperor of the kingdom of Yauchen (Kiang-nan,
with parts of Honan).
The special favour shown' to Buddhism, and the rapid rise of this doctrine,
naturally gave the Confucianists many reasons for complaints against and attacks
upon the new doctrine. Even under the Sung emperors the reports of the officials
show that Buddhism had lost its former purity, and that piety had given way to
carelessness. Ostentation and petty jealousies had taken the place of simplicity
and purity of heart. New temples were continually erected with great splendour,
while the old were allowed to fall into ruins. These facts called for official super-
vision, and it was urged that no one should be allowed to set up an image without
the previous consent of the authorities. A conspiracy discovered in 458, in which
a Buddhist priest had taken the leading part, provided an excuse for giving effect
to these proposals. An imperial decree was issued, declaring that there were many
among the priests who were criminals fleeing from justice, who had taken the vows
only to secure their personal safety, and had used their sacred character as the
cloak for further crimes. The authorities were, however, to examine closely the
conduct of the monks, and to punish the guilty with death. A further decree
ordained that monks who did not observe the vows of abstinence and poverty
were to return to their families and their previous secular occupations;' at the
same time the nuns were forbidden to approach the palace or to speak with women
of the harem.
The differences between Buddhism and Confucianism gave rise to public dis-
putations. During one of these, which was held in 433 under the emperor Wu Ti
of the Chi dynasty, a minister of state, Tse Liang, supported the Buddhists. The
chief arguments of the Confucianists were devoted to combating the opinion that
the present condition of mankind was to be considered as a recompense for good
or evil deeds committed in a previous existence. " Men are like the leaves on the
trees," it was said ; " they grow together, are torn away by the same wind and scat-
tered abroad ; some fall upon gardens and carpets, even as men who are born in
palaces, while others fall upon dunghills, like to men of low estate." Eiches and
poverty can thus be very well explained without reference to the doctrine of recom-
pense. Moreover, the soul belongs to the body, like sharpness to the knife ; the
soul can therefore exist after the destruction of the body, as sharpness exists when
the knife has been destroyed.
In 518 Sun yun was sent to India by the emperor Hsiao ming Ti of Pei We,
and returned with seventy-five Buddhist works, after a prolonged stay in Kandahar
and Udyana. In 526 the twenty-eighth Buddhist patriarch, Ta mo (Bodhidharma),
came to China by sea ; the downfall of Buddhism in the country of its origin had
forced him and many of his countrymen to seek a new home (in China, chiefly in
Loyang, three thousand Indians are said to have lived at the beginning of the sixth
century). He first visited Kiang-ning (Nankin). However, his meeting with Wu Ti,
the first emperor of the Liang dynasty (502-549), brought no satisfaction to either
party. Ta mo, therefore, betook himself to Loyang, and declined all the later
invitations of Wu Ti. The life of Bodhidharma was fully representative of that
contemplation which shuns the external world, and that mystical retirement char-
acteristic of Buddhism. In Loyang he is said to have sat with his face to the wall
of his room for nine years without speaking a word, for which reason he was popu-
larly known as " the saint looking at the wall." He died of old age, after surviving
84 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
five attempts which were made to poison him, and left the dignity of patriarch to
a Chinese, the second of the Six Eastern Patriarchs.
The emperor Wu Ti became a monk at the close of his life. His son Chlen
wen Ti was favourably inclined to Taoism, and attempted to bring about a union
between this school and Buddhism. Taoists who objected were executed. In 558
the emperor Wu Ti of the Chen dynasty also became a monk. Under the first
emperor of the Sui dynasty, Wen Ti (581—604), full tolerance was given to Bud-
dhism. Toward the end of his reign he forbade any destruction of the relics or
statues of Buddhists or Taoists. The Tang emperors, who had been opposed to
Buddhism at the beginning of their dynasty (618), soon became favourably disposed
to it. This was especially the case with the second ruler of the dynasty, Tai Tsung
(627-649), in whose reign the Syrian Christians came to China in 639. When
Hsuen Tsang, who had gone to India in 629 without asking the emperor's leave,
returned after an absence of sixteen years, the emperor gave him a kindly reception,
and ordered him to translate in Chaugan the six hundred and thirty-seven books
he had brought home. Three thousand seven hundred and sixteen monasteries are
said to have been in existence in China at that date. In 714 a violent persecution
of the Buddhists broke out. Ten thousand priests and nuns were obliged to return
to their families. In spite of this, individual priests continued to occupy State
offices, and Indians were entrusted with the arrangements of the calendar. Under
the later emperors of the Tang dynasty, especially under Su Tsung (756-762), Tai
Tsung (763-779), and Hsien Tsung (806-820), Buddhism made great strides ; and
when Han Yu (Han Wen kung), under the last of these kings, in 819, protested
againsi the transportation of a Buddhist relic into the imperial palace, he was ban-
ished from the court and sent as governor to Chao-Chau in Kwang Tung, which
was then a purely barbarian district.
In 845 a third and specially violent persecution broke out under the em-
peror Wu Tsung. Four thousand six hundred monasteries, together with forty
thousand smaller buildings, were destroyed. The possessions of the temples were
confiscated, and employed for the erection of government buildings. The bells and
statues were melted down and coined into cash, and more than two hundred and
sixty thousand priests and nuns were obliged to return to the ranks of the laity.
However, Hsuan Tsung, the successor of Wu Tsung, permitted the erection of new
monasteries, though a few years later he forbade the entry of new monks. The
emperor Yi Tsung (860-873) was a zealous Buddhist, as were both his successors
and the rulers of the later Tang dynasty (923-936). During the short period of
the later Chu dynasty (951-960) numerous temples were destroyed, and only two
thousand six hundred and ninety-four retained. Priests were also forbidden to
practise self-martyrdom and mutilation. The first emperors of the northern Sung
dynasty (960-997) were less favourably disposed to Buddhism. A reaction set in
under their successors, though these often acted arbitrarily in the designation of
the temples, monasteries, and priests, and of Buddha himself. Under this dynasty
the communication with India increased, and Indian Buddhism began to exercise
an important influence on Chinese belief.
Strong support was given to Buddhism by the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty (1280—
1368). Kublai Khan, who held the throne of China from 1280 to 1294, under the
name of Shi Tsu, was a zealous Buddhist. The temples devoted to the old national
religion of the Chinese were now transformed into Buddhist shrines, while Taoism
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 85
was persecuted. In this matter Kublai was probably thinking of the welfare of
his own Mongols rather than considering the wishes of the Chinese ; even before
he had united the Chinese empire under his sway, he had attempted to spread the
Buddhist teaching among his people, whom he caused to be instructed by Kuoshi,
national teachers. His successor followed his example. The enumeration made
toward the end of the thirteenth century showed 42,318 Buddhist temples and
213,148 monks in China. Translations from the Tibetan language are fre-
quently mentioned, and were used; as also, though only among the Mongols, were
the immoral representations which had passed into Tibetan Buddhism from the
Brahman Shiva worship. However, even at that time the Chinese Buddhists seem
to have sought teaching and information in India. A Chinese priest, Tan wu,
travelled to India by land, and returning as usual by sea, brought a number of
books back to China. This example, which occurs in the first period of the Mongol
rule, is the last of its kind.
It is remarkable that the national rising of the Chinese against the Mongols,
which ended in the utter extermination of these rulers, produced no similar effects
on the religious side ; on the contrary, the first rulers of the national Ming dynasty
show themselves specially well disposed toward the Buddhists. It was not until
1426 that measures were taken to limit the rising power of the monks. Those
who wished to enter a monastery were then obliged to subject themselves to pre-
vious examination, and in 1450 the regulation was made that no monastery should
possess more than sixty Mau of landed property. A similar law seems to have
existed under the Mongols. Under Shi Tsung (1522-1566) the Confucianists
attempted to introduce a persecution of the Buddhists, but were defeated by the
action of the government ; they only succeeded in procuring the destruction of the
temple existing in the imperial palace.
The first ruler of the present Manchu dynasty, Shi Tsu (1644-1661) was
iriendly to Buddhism ; however, his successor, Sheng Tsu, was converted to Con-
fucianism, probably for political purposes. For the same reason, he and his suc-
cessors showed special favour to the Llama-worship of their Tibetan and Mongol
.subjects, and the erection of Llama temples and monasteries at that seat of
government in Pekin dates from this period.
(6) The Influence of Buddhism on the Chinese Civilization. — The attempt
to estimate the influence exerted upon the Chinese by Buddhism and Buddhist
priests will show that, apart from the personal and political influence which the
adherents and preachers of the Indian teaching may have had upon individual
emperors and statesmen, the effects of Buddhism are to be seen chiefly upon the
philological and philosophical sides. At any rate, the meritorious attempt to sub-
stitute an alphabet for the monosyllabic language and writing of the Chinese is of
the highest importance. In the third century a beginning was made with sixteen
symbols, which were increased ultimately to thirty-six during the sixth century
under the Liang dynasty. The inventor of this latter series, the priest Shen
3mng, and his successors taught the Chinese to write the sounds of their lan-
guage with the signs appropriate to it. It is difficult to overestimate the service
thus rendered, even though, some centuries later, changes of language consid-
erably reduced the practical value of the system. Buddhism also exercised an
animating influence upon literary activity ; at one period Buddhist works were
86 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
more numerous than Confucian. Thus, in the history of the Sui dynasty (589—
618 A. D.) mention is made of the existence of nineteen hundred and fifty different
Buddhist works.
An important influence was also exerted by Buddhist opinions and teaching
upon the development of philosophy in China. This influence is especially appa-
rent in the writings of Chu hi (1130-1200), the most important modern expositor
of the old classical teaching, whose works still form the basis of what may be
called official Confucianism (p. 95). During the last one hundred and fifty years,
the Chinese themselves have shown a tendency to criticise his teaching more
severely, chiefly on account of the Buddhist influences apparent in it ; none the-
less the official recognition of his teaching has remained. The doctrines held by
the mass of the population are a confused mixture of native and foreign teach-
ing, as expounded by Taoist and Chinese sages, from which the original Buddhism
has almost vanished ; the result is superstition in the truest sense of the word.
Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism play the same part in the life of the people,,
including the upper classes ; but the influence of Buddhism is chiefly obvious in
the ceremonies customary upon the death of the individual. At the funeral
both of the emperor and of the poorest of his subjects, Buddhist ceremonies and
the reading of the sacred books are a very prominent feature.
H. THE MEDIEVAL HISTOKY OF CHINA
(a) The " Three Kingdoms " (216 or 220 to 265}. — The period of the thre&
contending kingdoms is one of the most difficult in the whole course of Chinese
history for the historian, and is undoubtedly that which has made the strongest
impression upon the national spirit, — an impression chiefly due to the famous
historical romance, " San kuo chi," which treats of the " History of the Three
Kingdoms," in one hundred and twenty sections. Kuan Yu, one of the heroes
of the book and of the history of the period, the adopted brother and general of
Liu Pei, died in 219 A. D., was canonised during the twelfth century, and under
the name of Kuan Ti became the Chinese god of war in 1594. Chu ko liang
(Kung Ming), another general of Liu Pei, is to-day the national hero, the ideal of
every Chinese statesman, and the leading character in a dozen dramatic works.
The revolt of the " Yellow Turban " rebels (Hwang chin tse"i), who overran the-
whole kingdom (p. 81), led indirectly to the fall of the later Han dynasty; this-
event was, however, also accelerated by the intrigues of those statesmen and generals,
who were anxious to form independent districts of their own from the fragments of
the empire. One of the most successful of these upstarts was Tsao Tsao, the son
of an officer of low rank, who made himself governor of the modern Shantung in
192, after distinguishing himself against the " Yellow Turbans " in 184. In the
meanwhile he had entered into an alliance with Yuan Shao (cf. above, p. 81).
With this ally he defeated the general Tung Cho, who had deposed the emperor Sha
Ti in 189, and had placed a child of his own, Hsien Ti, upon the throne. Tung
Cho murdered the emperor's widow and the deposed emperor, burnt down Loyang,.
with all its palaces and other buildings (which are said to have covered an area of
eighty kilometres), and removed the capital to Changan; shortly afterward, in
192, he was murdered by one of his officers. Tsao Tsao availed himself of this
opportunity ; after overcoming Lu Pu, one of the adherents of Tung Cho, he seized
S'j&Staai] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 87
the government in 195 and appointed himself generalissimo of the kingdom,
assuming the title of duke of We in 213.
His efforts had aroused some of his previous comrades to hostility against him.
Liu Pei, a descendant of the prince Ching of Chung shan, a son of the emperor
Ching Ti, who died in 141 B. c., whose ensign was a seller of straw shoes, had also
distinguished himself in 185 while fighting against the " Yellow Turbans," at the
head of a body of volunteers. At a later period he fought against Tung Cho, but
rose against Tsao Tsao upon the latter's attempt to seize the chief power. On
the downfall of the Han dynasty he declared himself emperor of the smaller
(Shu) Han dynasty, though for the moment the principality of Shu was his only
possession.
A third successful military leader was Sun Tseh, who had been made marquis
of Wu by Tsao Tsao. After his death, in the year 200, his brother Sun Chuan
succeeded him ; he broke away from Tsao Tsao, and successfully repulsed his
attacks and also those of his brother-in-law, Liu Pei. The former, however, de-
feated him in the battle of Ho Fei, and after a long-continued struggle he was
obliged to recognise the supremacy of Tsao Tsao in 221 ; however, in 229 he
regained an acknowledged independence, assumed the imperial title as Ta Ti, and
founded the dynasty of Wu.
Thus between the years 220 and 230 three kingdoms arose : We, which included
the whole of the northern half of modern China, with the capital of Yie, the
modern Changte'fu in Honan ; Wu, the eastern part of Southern China, together
with the mouth of the Yangtsze Eiver, the capital of which was Nanking (at that
period Chien yie); and Shu, the western half of Southern China, forming the
modern province of Szechwan, with Ichau, the modern Cheng-tu-fu, as its capital.
The period of the three kingdoms is entirely occupied by their mutual conflicts. In
263 Shu and in 280 Wu were destroyed by We. In We itself the reigning family
was dethroned in 265 by Sze ma Yen (Tsin Wu Ti), a grandson of the general Sze
ma I (f 251), who had played a great part in the early struggles between the three
States. His son Sze ma Chao was appointed minister to Fei Ti, the third ruler of
the We dynasty (240-253), and became prince of Tsin. Under this title his son
founded a new dynasty in 265.
(6) The Western and Eastern Tsin Dynasty (265-316 and 317-420). — Under
the emperors of the house of Tsin, of whom the western rulers resided in Loyang
and the eastern in Nanking, smaller independent States arose everywhere through-
out the empire, some of them being governed by foreign rulers of Tartar origin.
This is therefore called " The Period of the Sixteen States." Karl Arendt men-
tions the following eighteen : —
i 1. Han, from 319 Chao, later Chien Chao (the earlier Chao), in Shansi, 304-329.
2. Cheng, from 338 Han, or Cheng Han, in Szechuen (304-347), with the capital Cheng tu.
3. Liang, or Chien Liang (the earlier Liang), in Kansu (317-376 and 386-387).
4. Hou Chao, 319-352 (350-352, named also Min and We by the pretender Jan, or Shi).
5. Yen, or Chien Yen (the earlier Yen), 345-370.
6. Chin, Ta Chin, or Chien Chin (351-394).
7. Tai (338-376), in the north, Shansi, under the house, T'o pa (To ba), the Hsien pi-Tartars
(Tunguses), who established the northern We in 386.
8. Hou Yen (the later Yen), 384-407; cf. No. 18.
9. Hsi Yen (the western Yen) in Shensi (384-394).
88 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
10. Hou Chin (the later Chin) in Kansu (384-417), founded by Yao Chang in Pei ti (Ching
yang fu).
11. Hsi Chin (the western Chin) in Kansu (385-400 and 409-431), founded by Chi fu Kuo yen
in Lung yo (Min Chou).
12. Hou Liang (the later Liang) in Kansu (386-403) ; hence diverged :
13. Nan Liang (the southern Liang) in Kansu (397-404 and 408-414), founded 397 by the family
Tu fo, the Hsien pi-Tartars ; and
14. Pei Liang (the northern Liang) in Kansu (397-439), founded by Tuan Yie, from 401 under
the supremacy of Hiung nu chii Chii Meng hsiin.
15. Nan Yen (the southern Yen) in Honan (398-410), founded by Mu Jung Te in Hua tai.
16. Hsi Liang (the western Liang), near Tun huang (400-421), in Central Asia, outside the
northwestern corner of the Great Wall.
17. Hsia, or Ta Hsia (the great Hsia), in Kansu (407-431), set lip by the Hiung riu Ho lien
Po po.
18. Pei Yen (the northern Yen), 407-436, formed from Hou Yen (No. 8) (foundation of Kao
Yiin).
The rapid rise and decay of these mushroom States is evidence of the weakness
of the central power during the Tsin dynasty. As a matter of fact, their whole
history, even that of the first rulers, is a record of internal dissension and struggles
with new States, governed sometimes by emperors and sometimes by kings, and
also at discord among themselves. In 304 Liu yuan founded the kingdom of Han
and assumed the title of emperor in 308 ; he was succeeded by Liu tsung in 310,
who took the Tsin emperor Huai Ti prisoner in 311 and carried him off to his
capital, Ping yang, in Shansi. In 313 Liu Tsung murdered the emperor and placed
Min Ti on the throne; the latter was also brought to Ping yang in 316 and mur-
dered there. Yuan Ti, the first emperor of the eastern Tsin dynasty (317 to 322),
removed the capital to Nanking. In 350 Mi Chiin, who had been emperor of
Ohien Yen since 349, conquered Chi cheng, the modern Peking, and made it his
capital. In 371 the prince of Kuei chi deposed Ti Yi, who had represented the
Tsin dynasty from 366, and made himself emperor under the title of Chienwen Ti.
In 403 the rebel Huan Hsuan got possession of the throne ; he was murdered,
and the deposed emperor An Ti of the eastern Tsin dynasty (397-418) again
came into power; he, however, was also murdered in 418 by Liu Yu, who placed
Te Wen, a younger brother of An Ti, on the throne. In 420 Kung Ti (formerly
Ten Wen) abdicated in favour of Liu Yu ; he originally, like Liu Pei, had been
a seller of straw shoes, had risen to be general by his military capacity, and had
distinguished himself in the operations against Huan Hsuan, and had been
appointed the first minister of An Ti ; in 420 he ascended the throne as the first
emperor of the Sung dynasty.
(c) The Period of Separation between North and South, 4-20—581 (589}. —
(a) The South. — The last of the five independent States which were still in
existence upon the accession of the founder of the Sung dynasty of the house of
Liu, who now called himself Wu Ti, survived until 439. Pei Yen and Pei Liang,
the last two of these States, were incorporated in 436 and 439 respectively with
Pei We (North We), which had sprung from the ruins of the State of Tai ; after
the year 386 it had gradually extended its area in North China until it had grown
nearly equal in size to the We, as that kingdom had been limited at the time of
the " Three States." The Sung dynasty, which produced eight emperors during the
short period from 420 to 479, was ruined by internal dissensions. Four of these
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 89
emperors were murdered, the last but one, Tsang wu wang, or Fei Ti, being
murdered in 477 by the field-marshal Hsaio Tao Cheng; the latter then placed
Shun Ti upon the throne, but in 479 forced him to abdicate, and executed him with
his whole family.
Hsiao Tao Cheng became prince of Chi in 479, and, under the title of Kao Ti,
founder of the Chi dynasty (479-502). The seven emperors of this dynasty seem
to have been particularly bloodthirsty tyrants ; four of them were murdered, the
last, Ho Ti, by Hsiao Yen, who seized the power in 502, and founded the Liang
dynasty (502-557). Nanking was the capital of this dynasty also. Wu Ti, for-
merly Hsiao Wen (502-549), was a powerful emperor, who showed great favour to
Confucianism at the outset of his reign, and still more to Buddhism at a later
period. He was successful in repulsing the attacks of We. But the last years
of his reign were disturbed by internal dissensions, which concluded in the year
557 with the deposition of his fifth successor, Ching Ti (murdered in 558).
In 557 the victorious rebel Chen Pa hsien ascended the throne as the first
emperor of the Chuen dynasty. The State of Hou Liang, which had existed in
Honan and Hupei since 550, continued under the new dynasty; after 581 the first
beginnings of the later Sui dynasty appeared in Shensi. The Chuen dynasty also
collapsed, in consequence of family dissensions, quarrels about the succession, and
the dissolute lives of its princes. In 587 Yang Chien occupied Hou Liang, and in
589 he overthrew the Chuen dynasty, taking the last emperor, Hou Chu, prisoner ;
he then ascended the throne under the name of Wen Ti or Kao Tsu, as the first
emperor of the Sui dynasty, and united the whole kingdom under his sceptre.
(/3) The North. — The Pei We dynasty (386-534) was of Tartar origin; as,
however, the population subject to them grew more settled, the points of variance
between themselves and the other Tartar races who were still living a nomadic life
became more acute, and in consequence Ming yuan Ti (409-423) resolved to
build a great wall of two thousand li in length as a defence against their incursions.
At a later period relations with these kindred tribes seem to have improved, and
extensive commercial intercourse developed upon the north and west, as far as the
Obi and Lake Baikal. The favour of the emperors was given alternately to
Taoism and Buddhism, so that the adherents of these two sects were at times
taken under protection and at other times exposed to persecution. The energy
of the State was largely occupied by quarrels with and struggles against the south,
and family dissensions weakened the power of the imperial house, which ended
its existence amid dreadful atrocities.
In 534 Kao Huan, the governor of one of the imperial provinces revolted. The
emperor Hsaio wu Ti fled to Chang (Si ngan) in Sheusi, which now became
the capital of Hsi We, the western We (535-557). The first ruler of this branch
was Wen Ti in 535, after Hsaio wu Ti had been poisoned at the end of 534 by
the prime minister, Yii wen Tai. In Lo-yang, Kao Huan appointed Yuan Shan
chien, under the title of Hsaio ching Ti, in 534 to be emperor of the eastern or
Tung We (534-550). The capital of the new kingdom (Pei We now disappears
from our notice) was Chang-te-fu in Honan. A few years later (550) a son of
Kao Huan, by name Kao Yang, founded the northern Chi, or Pei Chi (550-557),
upon the ruins of Tung We. In 597, in place of Hsi We arose the realm of the
northern Chau, or Pei Chau (557-581), under the emperor Yu wen Chio, who was
90 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
murdered in the same year ; the murderer, Yu wen Hu, set Ming Ti on the throne.
In 576 the emperor An te wang of Pei Chi was taken prisoner by Wun Ti of Pei
Chu, and in 577 Pei Chi is merged into Pei Chu. In 581 Pei Chu suffered the
same fate at the hands of Wen Ti, whereupon the incorporation of Hou Liaug
(587 ; cf. supra) was followed by the union of the empire under the Sui dynasty in
the year 589.
(d) The Sui Dynasty (581 or 589 to 617 or 619). — Wen Ti (581-604) ordered
a survey of the empire to be made, and introduced a new principle of administration
by making the several administrative departments independent of one another.
He was a patron of literature and a supporter of commerce, and made a vain
attempt to introduce the Indian system of caste into China. In 604 he was
apparently murdered by his son Kwang, who succeeded him as (Sui) Yang Ti
(605-617). The three capitals of the kingdom were Changan in Shensi, Loyang
in Honan, and Chiangtu (Yangchou) in Kiangsi. However, as early as 613
" emperors " of new petty States existed in different parts of the empire. Li Yuan,
duke of Tang, or more correctly his son Li Shi min, set up an opposition emperor
in 617 against Yang Ti, who had plunged into the wildest excesses and had
directed two unsuccessful campaigns against Korea ; this pretender was Kung Ti I
(Yd), who was succeeded by Kung Ti II (Tung), who was murdered in 619. Li
Shi mm then placed his father upon the throne, under the name of Kao Tsu, as
the first emperor of the Tang dynasty.
<Y) The Tang Dynasty (618-907}. — The reign of Kao Tsu (618-626) was
almost entirely occupied with struggles against more than twenty usurpers,
who had been in existence under the Sui dynasty, or had set themselves up under
the new government in different parts of the country and declared themselves
independent kings (Wangs) or emperors. It was not until 628 that the last of
these petty kings was conquered in the person of Shi tu, who had made himself
lord of Liang in 617. The Tang dynasty was then recognised throughout the
empire.
Kao Tsu, weary of government, abdicated in 626, and his son Li Shi min took
up the power under the title of Tai Tsung (627-649). Under this highly important
ruler universal peace prevailed. The free tribes still in existence on the south
coast were incorporated with the Chinese Empire, and the western frontier was
extended to the Caspian Sea. In the country which is now Chinese Turkestan
four governorships were formed, and even beyond the boundary of Kashgar, the
furthest of these, many tribes recognised the supremacy of China, which was mani-
fested by the institution of sixteen commanders. Chinese influence extended to
Sogdiana, Khorasan, and Nepal. In 643 the Greek emperor Theodosius sent an
embassy to Changan. Kao Tsu and his son made great efforts to promote literature
and education among the Chinese people ; they erected schools and arranged public
examinations ; and Tai Tsung composed a legal code for his officials.
Toward the end of his reign the latter undertook an expedition against Korea,
which was successfully concluded by his son. Kao Tsung (650-683) was a weak
voluptuary ; during his life, and after his death, his consort Wu Hau, the empress
Wu (see Fig. 2 on the plate, " Heroes and Heroines of Chinese History ") became a
highly important personage. Originally one of the inferior concubines of Tai
HEROES AND HEROINES OF CHINESE HISTORY.
Above, on the left : 1. Tsch'iao — -kuo-fu-jen, the heroic female leader of a band of volunteers
towards the close of the 6th century of our era.
Below, on the left : 2. Wu Tse-t'ien, a famous Empress (625-705).
Below, on the right : 3. Yo Fei, patriot and nationalist hero.
Above, on the right : 4. Hu Ta-hai, leader of the vanguard, and a faithful friend of the
founder of the Ming dynasty (second half of the 14th century of our era).
CO
E
Ed
co 2s
W a
21
U |
Si
V
CO £
W .5
2 u
O "3
CO
O
5
E
>] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 91
Tsung, she had retired into a Buddhist monastery after his death in 649. When
Kao Tsung seemed to have been entirely subjected to the influence of one of his
court ladies, his wife remembered her father-in-law's former favourite and brought
her back to the court. Wu Chao (her original name) became a leading figure at
court in 654. She soon succeeded in driving out the rival empress and in completing
her destruction, and in 674 she gained for her nephew Wu Chengsze the appoint-
ment of Duke of Chau, while her husband (after 655) and she herself assumed the
titles of Emperor and Empress of the Heaven. After the emperor's death. (683)
she at first set her two sons Chung Tsung and Yui Tsung on the throne, but
undertook the government herself in the same year. From 684 to 705 she ruled
with great cruelty and despotic power ; but was so successful that even after her
deposition by Chung Tsung, who had been recalled from exile, she was treated
with high consideration until her death, which followed shortly afterward. She
is best known under the name of Wu Tse tien.
Chung Tsung, who had entirely lost, his intellectual powers during his long
banishment, was a mere tool in the bands of his ambitious and voluptuous wife,
the empress Wei Hou, who poisoned Mm in 710, and placed his son Chung Mao on
the throne ; he, however, was deposed after a short time and replaced by Yui Tsung
(710-712), who had also been recalled from banishment. His son Lung chi then
revolted, stormed the palace, slew the empress Wei, and was recognised by his
father as emperor.
Under Hsuan Tsung (also known as Tang Ming Huang; 712-756) the greatest
disorder prevailed at the court and throughout the empire. The emperor was
entirely in the hands of his favourite, Yang Kwei Fei (Kwei Fei is the title next in
dignity to that of empress), whose three sisters he had also taken into his harem ;
upon this woman and her relations he showered favours. Among his favourites of
the other sex, An Luh shan, a Tartar, originally known as A la shan, took the first
place ; in the year 755 he was appointed to the command of a great army intended
for service against the Turkish and Tartar tribes, whereupon he declared himself
independent and turned upon the capital. The emperor fled ; during his retreat his
soldiers revolted and forced him to order Kao Li sze, his favourite eunuch and
minister, to strangle Yang Kwei Fei, while the soldiers themselves publicly exe-
cuted a brother and a sister of the favourite. This event has been commemorated
in some of the most beautiful of the Chinese popular ballads. Indeed the period of
the Tang dynasty and the reign of Hsuan Tsung was the most flourishing epoch
of Chinese poetry. Under this monarch lived and died the most famous lyric poet
of China, Li Tai peh. An Luh shan was murdered in the hour of his success by
one of his sons. His descendants, who murdered one another as they found occa-
sion, established themselves in the frontier provinces, until the death of the last of
the family in 763 removed all opposition to the imperial supremacy.
Su Tsung (756-762) was a weak prince who was entirely in the hands of one
of his favourites, Chang Liang ti, who had gained the position of empress through
the influence of a eunuch, Li Fu kuo. The eunuch and the empress quarrelled,,
and upon the emperor's death Li availed himself of the opportunity of murdering-
the empress. He seems to have enjoyed no less influence at the outset of the
reign of Tai Tsung (763-779), but was afterward executed with other eunuchs.
A revolt of the frontier tribes at the instigation of Chinese malcontents was sup-
pressed in 765, chiefly by the efforts of the general Kwo Tsze-i, whose military talents
92 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
had been of the highest service under the previous emperor. Te Tsung (780-805)
attempted to introduce various innovations into the imperial government, but did
not possess the strength or the perseverance to carry out his intentions ; he was
anxious to break down the power of the provincial governors (several of whom
often existed concurrently in each of the ten Tao), who had in part made them-
selves the hereditary lords of the districts under their charge ; but the emperor was
obliged to flee, and only won his way back to the capital after long and severe
struggles. Other attempts at reform were equally unsuccessful ; the attempt of
the minister Yang Yen to abolish the land tax, labour services, and payment of
taxes in kind, and to substitute for these a tax in money to be paid every half year,
ended with the reformer's execution in 781. During the last years of this
emperor's reign the greatest disorder prevailed in every department of the adminis-
tration, and offices were usually assigned to the highest bidder.
From this time onward the Tang dynasty steadily decayed ; the rulers were either
entirely subject to the influence of Taoist intriguers or to the eunuchs, who deposed
and murdered several members of the dynasty. The attempts of the provincial
governors to secure their independence led to a constant series of revolts, which
were only suppressed with difficulty. In 880 Huang Chao seized the capital of
Changan and declared himself emperor. It was not until 884 that he was over-
powered, and then only with the help of Tartar frontier troops. Chu Chuan chung,
one of the adherents of Huang Chao, had taken the emperor's side and received a
command in the army; he now became a personage of high importance. The
eunuchs, who had murdered many princes of the imperial house, attempted to
abduct the emperor Chao Tsung. Chu brought him back to Changan, murdered
him in 904, and placed his son Chaohsuan Ti upon the throne. Chu then
removed every official and prince from whom opposition to his plans could possibly
be feared, and deposed the emperor in 907. This event brought the Tang dynasty
to an end, and Chu Chuan chung assumed the title of Tai Tsu and became the first
ruler of the later (Hou) Liang dynasty.
(/) The Five Dynasties (907-960}. — Previous to the fall of the Tang dynasty
independent States had been formed in different parts of the empire. At a later
period similar States were added to these, in which adherents of the Tang dynasty
had succeeded in defending their independence against the usurpers of the Hou
Liang dynasty and their successors. The Chinese usually designate this age as
that of the " Later Five Dynasties," and also as the age of " The Ten States." Of
these States (Chien) Shu was situated in Szechwan, "VVu in Kiangsu, Min in Fokieu,
Wu Yiie in Chekiang, Nan Han in Kwangtung (Canton), Chu in Honan, Ching nan
in Hupei. In addition to these the States of Chi in Shensi and Kaiisu, and Yen in
Pechili (Peking), existed independently. Upon the north and west two Tartar
tribes, the Khitan (Liao) and the Hsia, had extended their boundaries and become
independent kingdoms, the former dating from 937 and the latter from 1031.
The first of the Five Dynasties was the later (Hou) Liang dynasty (907-923),
which actually ruled only over Honan and Shantung. Mo Ti, the second emperor
of this dynasty, was overpowered by a usurper of the principality of Tsiu, Li Tsun
hsu, of Turkish origin. In 923 he founded the later (Hou) Tang dynasty, under the
title of Chuang Tsung. This came to an end after the inglorious rule of four
emperors, the latter of whom, Fei Ti, was besieged by the Khitan, and burnt himself
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 93
alive in his palace at Loyang. The later (Hou) Tsin dynasty, set up by and tribu-
tary to the Khitan, was also destroyed by them. In 946 the Khitan captured the
capital of Kaifong in Honan, and carried the emperor Chu Ti into captivity.
After a short interregnum, Liu Kao ascended the throne under the name of
Kao Tsu, the first emperor of the later (Hou) Han dynasty ; he succeeded in
driving the Khitan out of the empire. His son Yin Ti was defeated in 950
by the general Kuo Wei, who was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers with
the title of Tai Tsu, and ascended the throne as the first emperor of the later
(Hou) Chau dynasty in the year 951. His grandson, however, was dethroned
in 960 by the general Chao Kuang yin, who had been appointed emperor by
his army.
The area of these conflicts was almost exclusively confined to the valley of the
Hoangho ; in the southern and western parts of China a period of comparative
peace prevailed.
(g) The Northern Sung Dynasty (960-1127). — Tai Tsu (960-976), the first
ruler of the northern Sung dynasty, was dragged out of his tent in a condition of
hopeless drunkenness by his soldiers and clothed with the imperial robes ; none
the less he proved himself an excellent ruler, and after long and bitter struggles
restored peace and order throughout the empire. Ching nan, one of the ten States,
gave in its submission in 963, as did Hou Shu in 965, Nan Han in 971, Nan Tang
in 975, Wu Yue in 978, and Pei Han in 979 ; the whole empire was now united
under Tai Tsung (976-997), with the exception of the districts ruled by the Khitan
and the Hsia, under the government of Tai Tsung (976-997). The governments of
Chen Tsung (998-1022) and Yen Tsung (1023-1063) were also periods of pro-
sperity for the country, although the latter of these rulers was obliged to purchase
a disgraceful peace from the Khitan. He operated with greater success against
the Hsia, who were settled near Ning hsia in Kansu ; they made, at any rate, a
nominal submission to his supremacy. However, in the year 1038 the Hsia-wang
Chao Yuan hao assumed the title of emperor. During an illness of Yen Tsung, as
also during the first years of his successor's reign, Ying Tsung, the empress Tsao
(Tsao Hau) played an important part as regent, though her powers were persist-
ently limited by the famous statesman Han Ki.
During the period of Shen Tsung (1068-1085) took place the interesting
attempts at reform introduced by the minister Wang An shih, who was himself
a famous scholar and author ; these reforms were founded upon the precedents and
uses of the old Chau dynasty (1200 B. c.). The chief feature of the reform was the
almost paternal interference of the government in the life of the agricultural popu-
lation. The system of tithings was reintroduced throughout the population, together
with the mutual responsibility of the members of the tithing, and a militia system
was drawn up based upon the provincial system and the general liability to mili-
tary service. In the spring of each year advances were made to the peasants from
the exchequer ; in the autumn, after the harvest, this amount had to be returned
plus twenty per cent interest. Those liable to labour services were obliged to com-
mute them for monetary payments. The objections raised to these reforms by
some of the highest State officials (Han Ki, Sze Ma kwang, Su shih, and others)
were founded upon the unreliability and the corruption of the officials, which would
make it impossible to carry out the reforms in detail ; as a matter of fact, it was
94 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
chiefly for this reason that they failed. The struggle between the two parties con-
tinued with varying success and under different rulers for nearly forty years, and
resulted in a victory of the old conservative party. Wang An shih was canonised
and his name inscribed in the temple of Kung fu tsze ; in 1086, long after his
death, he was deprived of all posthumous honours, and now lives in the memory of
the Chinese people as the " shameful " minister.
The period was also characterised by other movements in a philosophical,
literary, and antiquarian direction. But for the State at that period its military
power was the most important point, and here this dynasty appeared entirely
incompetent as compared with earlier and more glorious times. It ultimately
succumbed to the attacks of the Tartar kingdoms then existing or in process of for-
mation upon the frontiers. In 907, Apaochi, apparently the chief of a Tungu tribe,
advanced beyond the Amur and the Liau rivers to the northeast frontier of China,
where he founded the kingdom of Khitan and the Liau dynasty in 916 under the
title of Tai Tsu (the dynasty lasted from 916 to 1125); this kingdom gradually
extended from Amur to North Pechili and from the Gulf of Liautung to the
Desert of Gobi (Shamo), and carried on many long wars against China, plundering
and humiliating the empire and extorting payments of tribute, until an opponent,
at first its equal and soon its superior, arose in the Kin Tartars (Nu chen, Nu chi),
who are the ancestors of the Manchu dynasty now ruling in China. Threatened by
the Liau, the emperor Hui Tsung (1101-1125) turned to Akuta, the prince of the
Kin, for help against the Liau, with whom this prince was himself at war. Akuta,
who had assumed the title of " Emperor of Kin," under the name of Tai Tsu (1115-
1122), acceded to this request; his brother and successor, Tai Tsung, overthrew
the kingdom of the Liau in 1125 and captured the capital and the last emperor,
Tien tsu Huang ti. Te Tsung (Yie lu Ta shi), a member of the imperial family,
fled to the westward and founded in Central Asia the kingdom of the Kara Khitai,
the Black Khitan, or the dynasty of the Hsi Liao (the western Liau), which was
destroyed in 1201 by the khan of the Naiman Mongols. The Chinese gained no
advantage by the destruction of the Liau, for the Kin proved a far more dangerous
enemy. This nation forced China to make concessions of territory and payments
of tribute. In 1125 they again passed the frontier, captured Loyang in 1127, and
carried the emperor Chin Tsung (1126-1127) into captivity. Their kingdom, the
capital of which was at first Yen (Peking), extended to Honan, where at first
Kaifong and afterward the more southerly Shu-ning became the capital. Chang
Pang chang, originally an official whom they had set up under the title of the
emperor of Chu in the year 1127, abdicated in the same year, and Kao Tsung, the
ninth son of Hui Tsung, ascended the throne, thus becoming the first emperor of
the southern Sung dynasty.
(A) The Southern Sung Dynasty (1137-129-5). — Eepeated incursions by the
Kin forced Kao Tsung (1127-1162) to remove the capital from Nanking to Lin an
(Hangehau) in Chekiang. The struggles of the Chinese against the Kin were by
no means invariably unsuccessful. The general Yoh Fei especially distinguished
himself in this warfare, but his attempts to induce the emperor to make a decisive
attack upon the enemies of the empire were rendered nugatory by the minister
Tsin Kuei, who was apparently in the pay of the Kin. Eventually Yoh Fei and
his sou were thrown into prison, and executed in 1141. Yoh Fei was canonised hi
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 95
1179, and his opponent is still regarded with abhorrence both by the Chinese
-people and the native historians.
The sole feature of interest in the history of the southern Sung dynasty, which
•consists of a series of struggles, first against the Kin and then against the Mongols,
is the revival of philosophic study, which reached its highest point in the exegetical
school of Chu hi (1130-1200; see p. 86). His exhortations upon the classical
books, and those of his pupils Chau Tun-i, Cheng Teh shiu, and others, are still
authoritative works for the explanation of the orthodox belief.
The wars against the Kin, to whom China was at times nominally allied and
often actually tributary, exhausted the strength of the empire, until at the outset
of the thirteenth century the Kin were confronted with the attacks of the Mongols.
A convention concluded by the emperor Li Tsung (1225-1264) with Ogotai, the
successor of Genghis Khan, in 1239, proved advantageous rather to the Mongols
than to the Chinese, although the Chinese troops won a great victory over the Kin
under the agreement. The Mongols got possession of Tsaichau (Shu-ning), where
Ai Tsung and Mo Ti, the last emperors of the Kin dynasty, lost their lives. All
attempts of the Chinese to check the advance of the Mongols by force of arms
or by offers of submission proved vain. In 1276 the Mongol general Bayan
{Bo yen) conquered Hang-ehau, captured the emperor Kung Ti with almost all
the members of the royal family, and carried them northward into captivity. The
eldest son of Tu Tsung (1265-1274), by name Chao Shi, succeeded in escaping
from the enemy, and was recognised for nine years as emperor in Fuchau, under
the name of Tuan Tung. However, he was soon obliged to flee before the advanc-
ing Mongols to Kwangtung, where he died in 1278. His younger brother, Ti Ping,
fled with the last of his adherents to the island of Yai shan, which was attacked by
the Mongols in 1279. Upon the loss of the battle, the minister Lu Shiu plunged
into the sea with the nine year old emperor on his back, both being drowned
together. This example was followed by a number of the court attendants upon
the young emperor to avoid capture at the hands of the Mongols. Thus the
southern Sung dynasty came to an end with the subjugation of the Chinese
people by the Mongols.
(i) The Mongol Yuan Dynasty, 1206 (1260 or 1280) to 1368. -- Temujin,
"better known as Genghis Khan, was the son of a chieftain of the Nirun Mongols,
and was born in 1155. After a long struggle he made himself chief of this tribe,
overcame his most important rival, Ong Khan, in 1203, and was elected chief of
all the Mongol tribes. His possessions were situated in Karakorum, from whence
he advanced to the conquest of the world, overcoming the Uigurians in 1209, the
Kharismians in 1220, and defeating the Eussians, who were in alliance with the
Kumaris, on the Kalka in 1223. He died on the mountain Lu pan shan, in Kansu,
while upon an expedition against the Tanguts in 1227, the year of the downfall of
the western Hsia dynasty. His influence upon China was merely indirect, through
Ms expulsion of the Kin dynasty. His imperial title, and his Chinese name Tai
tszu, which he bore after 1206, are no doubt honourable additions of a later period.
After his son To Lei (Tuli; 1227-1229) had ruled for a short period he was
succeeded by his third son, Ogotai Khan (Wokuo tai ; in Chinese, Tai Tsung), 1229-
1241. Under his rule the Mongols destroyed the Kin dynasty, and became the
immediate neighbours of China. Upon the west also the Mongol kingdom was
96 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
rapidly extended ; their expeditions against North Russia as far as the district of
Novgorod (1237-1238), against South Russia as far as Volhynia and Podolia
(1240), against Poland, Silesia, and Moravia (1240-1241), against Hungary (1241-
1242), spread the terror of the Mongol arms far and wide throughout Eastern Europe,
and also brought the existence of China to the knowledge of the West. The three
great kingdoms founded in Asia, Persia, Turkestan, and that of the Golden Horde
on the Volga, recognized, though perhaps only nominally, the supremacy of China,
— a submission later renewed to Timur the conqueror of India. The rulers of the
three kingdoms received yearly subsidies from China, whence also they acquired
their appointment and their royal seals. Prisoners of war formed the body-guards
of the Chinese emperor, a Russian guard, for example, being formed in 1330-
Numerous embassies also brought tribute from the subject princes.
After the death of Ogotai, his wife, Nai Ma chen, the sixth queen, undertook
the government during the minority of her eldest son, Kuyuk Khan (Kuei yu ; in
Chinese, Ting Tsung), who ascended the throne in 1246 ; however, he died in 1248.
The empress Wo wu li hai mi shi in Karakorum undertook the regency until the
coming of age of Mangu Khan, the son of Tu li (Meng Ko ; in Chinese, Hsien
Tsung; 1251-1259); he spent most of his time in his summer capital of Shang tu
(Xanadu) in Southeast Mongolia, where he died. His reign was almost entirely
occupied with wars against the southern Sung dynasty, which was ultimately
destroyed in 1279 under the rule of his younger brother, Kublai Khan (Hu pi lie ;
in Chinese, Shi Tsu; 1260-1294). The first war of Kublai was directed against
the pretender within his own nation, Arikbuga (Alipuko), who revolted against
him in Karakorum, but was defeated in 1261, and forced to flight and submission
in 1264. In the same year Peking was declared the capital of the country, under
the name of Chung tu (central residence), and in 1271 Kublai adopted the title of
the Yuan dynasty for his family. The Mongols, who had already subdued Korea,
made this country the base of operations for an attempt (which was defeated by
the Japanese) to establish themselves in Kyushu. Negotiations were carried on
by Japan with the idea of ultimate subjection, but led to no result, and a great
fleet sent out by Kublai against Japan in 1281 was almost entirely destroyed
by a fearful storm. In spite of this failure, Kublai maintained peace and order
throughout the twelve provinces into which the empire was divided, and under his
administration every possible consideration was given to Chinese customs. The
great " Imperial Canal," which had already been begun under the dynasties of the
Sui, Sung, and the Kin, was extended and completed, and the nation developed
advantageously in other directions. Marco Polo visited the court of the Grand
Khan between 1275 and 1292 with his two uncles, Nicolo and Maffeo, spent some
time in different parts of the empire, and acquired much information upon its riches
and treasures (" Marco Millione "). His accounts led indirectly to the discovery of
America (cf. VoL I, p. 347), as Columbus set out " to sail westward to the east ; "
that is, to discover Manzi or Southern China.
Timur (Tie murh; in Chinese, Cheng Tsung; 1295-1307), the successor of
Kublai, reintroduced the veneration of Kung fu tsze, whose doctrines had been
tolerated, but not respected, by his predecessors. His example was followed by the
succeeding rulers, who evinced keen interest in the classical literature, though they
did not thereby gain the affection of their subjects. Upon the whole, the Mongol
rulers seem to have governed wisely ; they invariably showed themselves anxious
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 97
to lessen the burdens upon the people, but the remembrance of the fear inspired
by the Mongol invasions had not as yet been obliterated. Any convulsion of
nature which ravaged the country was considered by the learned classes and the
common people to be a heaven-sent punishment. In court life eunuchs were also
influential. The emperor Shotepala (YingTsung) was murdered in 1323 by his
chamberlain, Tie shi ; but those family dissensions which had so largely contri-
buted to the downfall of earlier dynasties were almost unknown. The first in-
stance of such outbreaks occurred in 1328, after the death of the emperor Yesun
Timur (Tai ting Ti). Wen Tsung, or Tup Timur, a son of Kaisun (Hai shan,
Wu Tsung ; 1308-1311), got possession of the throne, and drove out Asu chipa
(Achakpa), a son of Yesun Timur, who had also assumed the imperial title within
Shang tu. The elder brother, Ho shi la (Ming Tsung), was recognised in 1328 by
Tup Timur as the legal heir, and ascended the throne in Mongolia, but died in
1329 on a visit to a younger brother, who is supposed to have poisoned him. Wen
Tsung then ruled until 1332, and died in Shang tu.
I-lin-chi-pan, a son of Ho-shi-la, who was but seven years of age, was set upon
the throne, and died in the same year ; he was succeeded by his eldest brother,
To-huan Tie-murh (Shun Ti; 1333-1368), the last ruler of the Mongolian
dynasty. The reign of Shun Ti was opened by a series of earthquakes, showers
of blood, and other phenomena, which, together with the failure in the harvest
and an outbreak of floods, threw the nation into a state of disquietude. Much dis-
satisfaction was also caused by the issue of a decree for the undertaking of works
upon the banks of the Hoang Ho, in the course of which taxation was necessarily
increased. In 1348 the first disturbances broke out. In 1351 an opposition em-
peror, Hsu Shou hui, was set up in Hupei, and another emperor, Chang Shi cheng,
in Kiangsu in 1353. In 1360 Hsu Shou hui was deposed by Chen Yo liang, who
styled himself emperor of Han, while Chang Shi cheng proclaimed himself king
of Wu in 1363, and was deposed by Chu Yuan chang in 1367. In 1355 Han
Lin erh proclaimed himself emperor of Sung in Ngan-hwei; and in 1363 Ming
yu chen proclaimed himself emperor of Hsia in Szechwan.
The most important of all these pretenders was Chu Yuan chang ; he had been
born of poor parents, and after becoming a Buddhist priest had entered the service
of Kwo Tze King, who had made himself prince of Chu yang in Ngan-hwei in
the year 1353. After the death of his father-in-law, Chu conquered Nanking at
the head of a division of the forces collected by the former, and made himself king
of Wu in 1367 ; he tnen became the chief opponent of the Mongols. In 1368 he
assumed the imperial title, with the dynastic name of Ming ; in the same year his
generals (see Fig. 4 of the plate, p. 90) conquered Peking, whence the last Mongol
emperor, Shun Ti, fled, passing through the Nanking Pass into those same steppes
whence his forefathers had once set out for the invasion of China.
(J) THE BEGINNINGS OF CHEISTIANITY IN CHINA (635-1368)
(a) Nestorianism. — An inscription on the monument discovered in 1625 at
Singanfu, the authenticity of which was erroneously doubted in the seventeenth
century, states that a Nestorian, the first Christian missionary, arrived in China in
635. Upon the monument he is known as " Olopen," which is perhaps merely a
corruption of the Chinese expression for monk, and the religion, of which a some-
VOL. II — 7
98 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
what vague summary is given, is called the noble law of Ta tsin (Syria ; cf. p. 79).
The books brought by Olopen were translated with the emperor's leave, and
official sanction was given to the dissemination of his teaching. The Tang emperor,
Tai Tsung, is said in 638 to have given his express permission to the preaching of
the new doctrine, and to have allowed the building of a church, in which his picture
was placed. Kao Tsung (650-683) also favoured the doctrine. At a later period,
however, difficulties rose ; but Hsuan Tsung (712-756) again showed favour to
the doctrine, and a new missionary, Kiho, is said to have entered the country.
Finally the monument records its own erection in 781, under Te Tsung (780-805).
The inscription is in the Chinese language, and partly in poetical form ; it contains
quotations in the Syrian language (Estrangelo), from which it appears that a large
number of Nestorian priests (one reference contains sixty-seven names) were then
working in China. They are said to have been organised under several episcopal
vicars, the first of whom is entitled the pope of Zinstan (Zinistan, or China ; cf.
Vol. IV, p. 214). According to later accounts, closer relations existed between the
Nestorians and the mother church in Syria, until broken off by the advance of
Mohammedanism. In 845 the Christian priests, who are said to have numbered
three thousand, came under the edict of Wu Tsung, which ordered them, like
those of Buddha, to return to their temporal occupations. Nevertheless the Nes-
torians maintained their footing in China and Central Asia (Presbyter, or Prester,
John, a very fabulous personage, may perhaps be identified with Ong Khan, the
rival of Genghis Khan; cf. p. 95). They possessed a large number of parishes and
churches throughout the empire, and were not without influence at the court of the
Mongol princes and emperor, making many converts among the women and among
some of the higher officials. They fell with the Mongol dynasty, without leaving
any trace of their existence.
(b) Tlw Roman Catholic Belief. — At the time of the Mongol dynasty the first
Eoman Catholic priests arrived in China, appearing in the character of ambassa-
dors with a diplomatic message from the pope and temporal princes. The success
of the Mongols in Western Asia and Eastern Europe, together with the growing
power of Mohammedanism in Syria and Egypt, had seriously occupied the atten-
tion of the popes who preached, and the princes who took part in, the several
crusades, and it was thought that an alliance might be made with the Mongols
against the Mohammedans, the common enemy of both parties. This view of
the situation commended itself also to the followers of Genghis Khan. The
attempts to bring about a political and military alliance of this nature led to no
result, no doubt in consequence of the fact that both popes and Mongol princes,
instead of applying their energies to the practical solution of the questions before
them, discussed more extensive plans involving the extension of their power. How-
ever, the reports of the papal messengers, and the emissaries of the other princes
who went to Mongolia and China by land, offer many points of high interest.
Before the meeting of the Council of Lyons (1245), Pope Innocent IV sent to the
East an embassy of Dominicans under Nicolas Anselin (Anselm of Lombardy).
In August, 1247, they met the army of the general Bachu Noyan in Khwaresm,
and he sent them back with two Tartar (Mongolian) envoys with a message to
the pope (1248). The message was conceived in a discourteous style, and the
pope was ordered to give in his submission ; but the general treated the ambaa-
feoS*"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 99
sadors with the greatest kindness, in the hope of continuing further relations.
Simultaneously with the first mission, Innocent also despatched two Franciscans,
Lorenzo of Portugal, who was appointed papal legate in the East, and John of
Piano Carpini, who started on the journey from Breslau, in company with Bene-
dict of Poland. These latter were the first to reach Bachu, who sent them on
to the encampment of Ogotai, where they arrived at the moment when Kuyuk
ascended the throne in July, 1246. There they found Eussian and Hungarian
priests, and a goldsmith by name Kosmos. Kuyuk was himself the son of a
Nestorian woman, and among the women of his harem and his high officials
were many Christians, who were allowed to practise their religion.
In November the ambassadors were dismissed with a written answer from the
Great Khan. They were diplomatic enough to decline the company of Tartar
ambassadors, as they did not desire the latter to be witnesses of the dissensions
existing among the Christian princes, and so to acquire courage for further inva-
sions. The homeward journey through Eussia, Poland, Bohemia, and Austria
proved difficult, and they did not reach the pope until the end of the year 1247.
Meanwhile King Louis IX of France received in 1247 a demand from Bachu
to offer his submission, to which no reply was sent. In 1248, when Louis was on
his first crusade, ambassadors from Ilchikadai, the successor of the deceased Bachu,
came to the king in Cyprus, offering him an alliance against the Mohammedans,
and informing him that Ilchikadai and the Great Khan had themselves become
Christians. Upon this information, Louis sent out an embassy from Nicosia in
1249, consisting of Dominicans, under Andrew of Longumeau, to the Great Khan,
to present him with several relics and exhort him to continue in the Christian
religion. The embassy went by way of Persia, in order to speak with Ilchi, and
on arrival at the camp of the Great Khan found Kuyuk dead (1248). The queen
regent, Ogul Haiinish (Wo wu li hai mi shi; 1248-1251), accepted the gifts as a
token of tribute, and sent back the ambassadors with presents. They were unable
to gain any more accurate information on the subject of the alleged conversion.
They returned to the king at Acre in 1251.
In spite of his dissatisfaction at the false construction laid upon the object
of this embassy, Louis sent out in May, 1253, new ambassadors, the Franciscan,
William of Eubruquis, and Bartholomew of Cremona, using the supposed conver-
sion as an excuse for their despatch. They travelled by way of Constantinople
through the steppes between the Dnieper and Don, and reached the encampment
of Khagatai in July, whence they were sent on to Sartak Khan, the son of Bachu,
three days' march beyond the Volga. He, however, declined to give them leave
on his own responsibility to remain and preach in the country, and sent them to
Mangu. At his court in December, 1253, they found many Nestorian priests,
who had been given precedence over the Mohammedan Imans and the Bonzes.
Mangu was present at their divine services with his family, but probably this was
a matter of indifference to him. He himself, however, was very superstitious, and
never entered into any undertaking without previous divination by means of the
shoulder-bones (cf. p. 2). They accompanied Mangu to Karakorum, where they
found Guillaume Bouchier, a Parisian goldsmith. There, at the orders of Mangu,
they had a discussion with the priests of other religions. Mangu finally dismissed
Eubruquis (Bartholomew remained behind, as he declined to journey homeward
through the desert), with a written answer to King Louis, in which he assumed
100 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
the titles of " Son of the heaven " and " Lord of lords," and contradicted the in-
formation that had been given by the ambassadors of Ilchikadai and of Ogul
Haimish, and directed the king to act upon the orders of Genghis Khan. After a
march of two months Eubruquis met with Sartak, who betook himself to the
camp of Mangu, and had been baptised,as his " chaplain " reported. In September,
1254, Kubruquis reached the encampment of Bachu, whom he accompanied for a
month; ultimately he returned through the Caucasus, Armenia, and Syria, and
arrived at Tripoli in August, 1255, whence he sent his report to King Louis in
Acre.
The popes also were by no means idle, though their objects were now rather
religious than political. In 1278 Nicholas III sent five monks to the Great Khan,
but nothing is known of the results of this embassy. The Franciscan monk, John
of Montecorvino, who had started in 1289, arrived at the coast of South China in
1292 and made his way to Cambaluc (Peking), from whence he sent favourable
reports in 1305 and 1306 ; in 1307 he was appointed archbishop of Cambaluc.
In this year and in 1312 a number of suffragan bishops and other priests were
sent out to him, though it seems that some failed to reach their destination. In
Peking, Zaitun (Changchau or Chinchiu), and Yangchau there existed episcopal
towns, churches (three in Peking), and parishes, and when John of Montecorvino
died in 1328, the prospects of the Minorite mission appeared highly favourable,
although Andrew of Perugia, bishop of Zaitun, published a complaint in 1326 that
no converts were made of the Mohammedans and Jews, and that many of the
baptised heathen strayed from the Christian faith. On the other hand, as he
himself observed, the country enjoyed full religious toleration, and no opposition
was offered to the preaching of the missionaries.
Odoric of Pordenone, who arrived at the coast of China between 1320 and 1330,
remained for three years in the country and returned by way of Tibet, when he
drew up an exhaustive report of the religious conditions prevailing in the Far East.
The last communications upon the state of the country which were received from
China came from John Marignolli, who resided in Peking as the papal legate from
1342 to 1346. Communications were then cut off. In 1370 Urban V attempted
to improve the situation by sending out a papal legate, an archbishop, and some
eighty clergy to Peking ; but no news was ever received of any of them. The
Catholic mission perished amid the disturbances which broke out upon the down-
fall of the Mongolian dynasty, as the Nestorians had perished before them. The
hostility of the national Ming dynasty in China to all foreigners, the spread of
Mohammedan influence in Central Asia, and the conversion of rulers and peoples
to this faith are hardly of themselves a sufficient explanation of the calamities
which befell the Christians ; popular hatred of the foreign doctrine and the foreign
teachers must have materially contributed to their extermination.
K. CHINA DURING THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM MEDIEVAL TO MODERN
TIMES; THE MING DYNASTY (1368-1644)
THE first years of Tai Tsu, the first ruler of the house of the Ming (Ta Ming,
the great Ming, also generally known to foreigners as Hung wu, from the motto l
of his race ; 1368-1398), were devoted to completing the expulsion of the Mongols
1 The mottoes (cf. p. 78) will be added henceforward in brackets.
&%£!*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 101
and the subjugation of the pretenders within the empire. Ming Shen, the emperor
of Hsia (or Shu), submitted himself in 1371 ; in the same year a son of the last
Mongol ruler, who had hitherto maintained his ground in Szechwan and Yunnan,
was finally conquered. Shun Ti himself (p. 97), who had taken refuge with the
northern Mongols, was followed up by the Chinese and besieged in Yingchang,
where he died. His son succeeded in escaping after the fall of the town (1370).
The national rising of the Chinese helped to extend their influence abroad. Korea
and Annam sent tribute, and the Japanese who had ravaged the coasts of China at
intervals by way of revenge for the Mongol invasion were temporarily driven back
by a so-called Chinese naval victory at the Liu kiu Islands. In 1381 a revolt in
Yunnan was suppressed. The emperor, who resided in Nanking, paid much atten-
tion to the reorganisation of the country and of the administration ; he divided
the kingdom into thirteen provinces (Shansi east and west, Shantung, Honan,
Hukwang, Szechwan, Yunnan, Kweichau, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Fukien, Kiangsi,
and Chekiang), which were redivided into Fu, Chau, and Hsien (prefectures,
departments, and sub-departments), an arrangement which continues to the
present day.
Tai Tsu was succeeded by his grandson Hui Ti (Chien wen), who, however,
was immediately sent into a Buddhist monastery in 1403 by his uncle Tai Tsung
(Yung lo; 1403-1424), who had hitherto resided in Peking as king of Yen. Tai
Tsung introduced a double system of government with two sets of ministers, etc. 'r
the one in Peking, where he himself resided, the other at Nanking. Disturbances
which broke out as a protest against his usurpation were ruthlessly suppressed ;
at the same time he raised the prestige of China abroad. From the year 1406 to
1411 he carried on a war against Tongking, which ended with the subjugation of
the country, though his supremacy was not permanently established. In 1419 he
defeated the Japanese, who had made an incursion into Liautung. Expeditions
(embassies ?) were sent out under the eunuchs Cheng ho and Ma Huan to Siam,
Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Bengal, and to the Eed and Persian seas. In fact, Chinese
influence seems not only to have been felt in many of these countries at that time,
but to have been paramount. Ceylon recognised the political supremacy of China
for more than fifty years, and ambassadors came to China from Aden in 1422, from
Egypt in 1441, and from Samarkand in 1481. However, the great anxiety of the
emperor was the continued incursions of the Mongols, whereby he was induced to
transfer the capital to Peking and to strengthen the great wall by works under-
taken between the capital and Kalgan, which were afterward increased by his suc-
cessors. He himself carried on a number of campaigns against the Mongols, which,
though invariably successful, produced no permanent effect, and upon one of these
he died.
The successor of Tai Tsung was also obliged to struggle against these enemies.
Ying Tsung (Cheng tung; 1436-1449) was defeated by the Mongols and carried
into captivity, being ultimately released in 1457 at the price of a heavy ransom ;
he then resumed the government until 1464 under the motto, " Tien shun." Under
his successor, Hsien Tsung (Chenghua ; 1465-1487), the Mongol raids continued,
and obliged the government to further extend the existing fortifications. Eevolts
also broke out in the interior, especially in the district of the Miao and Yao of
Kwangsi and Kweichau (cf. p. 59, 60), which were not suppressed until 1467, after
long struggles. During the reign of Hsiao Tsung (Hung chi; 1488-1505) the
•102 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter I
Mongol invasions were renewed with varying success. Additional troubles under
Shi Tsung (Chia clung; 1522-1566) were caused by the repeated and energetic
, attacks of the Japanese upon the Yangtsze district (1550) and Fukien. In 1516
the Portuguese appeared at Canton; their first ambassadors entered Peking in
1520, and on returning to Canton paid with their lives for the misdeeds of their
compatriots, whose piracy had brought them into collision with the authorities and
the population.
During the government of Shen Tsung (Wan li; 1573-1620), one of the
more energetic rulers of this dynasty, three events occurred of the greatest impor-
tance for China and the whole of East Asia. In 1581 the first Jesuit came by sea
to China. In 1618 the Manchus, the descendants of the Kin dynasty, which had
been destroyed by the Mongols in 1234, entered the modern district of Manchuria
under Aisin Gioro, afterward known as Tai Tsu, and settled in Hsing ching. At a
later date they removed to Mukden (Shingking), whence the Chinese were unable
• to expel them. From 1592 to 1598 the Japanese held sway over Korea (cf. p. 31),
China sending military help to this her tributary State as she saw her own security
threatened by the advance of the Japanese. This measure of support, together
. with the obstinate resistance of the Koreans, raised such obstacles in the path of
the Japanese that, after a campaign of varied fortunes and fruitless diplomatic
negotiations, the dying Hideyoshi recalled his army to Japan.
In spite of this indisputable success, the Ming dynasty began henceforward to
decline. The influence of the eunuchs and the harem, which had always been
dominant in Peking, rapidly increased under the weaker emperors. Troops and
money were lacking, and the invasions of the Manchus grew more frequent and
more successful. In 1623 they were in possession of the whole of Liautung,
aud in 1629 they advanced as far as Peking and Tientsin, and were only driven
back after a severe struggle. In 1622 the government applied to Macao, and
enlisted from that district a body of Portuguese and Chinese freebooters four
hundred strong, and partly armed with guns, for service against the Manchu.
These, however, were not employed, probably from fear that they would turn upon
the government. The empire itself was in a general state of ferment. Eevolts,
partly due to years of famine, broke out in Shansi, Hupei, and Szechwan. While
the general Wu San kuei was striving his utmost to protect the northern frontier
against the advancing Manchus, who had been under the command of Tai Tsung
from 1627 (1627-1643), Li Tsze cheng revolted and marched upon Peking, which
fell in 1644 after a short siege. Huai Tsung (Chung cheng), who had ruled from
1628, and seems to have been an honourable but weak character, committed sui-
cide after killing his wife and daughters. With him the Ming dynasty came to
an end. Li Tsze cheng proclaimed himself emperor, but after a short time was
forced to evacuate the ruined capital by the advance of the Manchus, who had
been joined by Wu San kuei.
L. THE SECOND PERIOD OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA (FROM 1581)
(a) The Period of Prosperity of the Jesuit Mission. — In 1579 the provincial
of India sent two Jesuits to China, Euggiero and Matteo EiccL This step was
taken by the advice of Francis Xavier, who had himself intended to make his way
to China on the conclusion of his work in Japan, but had died upon the journey
*"'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 103
at the island of Sancian in 1552. His aims were supported by the Jesuit Ales-
sandro Valignani, who had visited Macao. They succeeded in reaching Canton
from Macao in 1581, and after infinite difficulty erected mission stations in
Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and afterward also in Nanking. In 1601 Eicci arrived at
Peking, where he won general respect. His view was that in the work of conver-
sion the opinions of the Chinese should be spared as much as possible. But his
successor, Nicholas Longobardi, whom he had himself appointed (he died in 1610),
did not share these views, and laid the foundation of that opposition which was
to prove terribly destructive to the Catholic missions a century later. The rapid
progress of the missionaries soon excited the jealousy and hatred of the official and
learned classes, and in 1616 an order was issued from Peking to imprison all mis-
sionaries. The edict was, however, executed only in that town and in Nanking.
When the invasions of the Manchus began in 1618, the missionaries were recalled
to support the government with advice and practical help, and especially to aid
them by casting cannon. This was the most prosperous period of the missionaries.
Until 1627 they counted thirteen thousand converts in the seven provinces of the
empire, and more than forty thousand ten years later.
The position of the missionaries was in no way affected by the downfall of the
Ming dynasty. Shi Tsu (Shun chi), the first emperor of the Manchu dynasty,
appointed the head of the mission for the time being, Adam Schall of Cologne, to
be president of the board of astronomy in 1645, and remained well disposed toward
him until his death (1661). However, during the minority of his successor, Sheng
Tsu (Kang hsi), the regents instituted measures of severe repression against mis-
sionaries. It was not until the emperor himself assumed the power in 1671 that
the decree of banishment which had been issued against the missionaries was
repealed. The revolt of Wu San kuei in Yunnan (1673) enabled Ferdinand
Verbiest, the successor of Schall, to make himself useful by casting cannon.
These and other services so increased the influence of the missionaries at the
court, that in 1691, when the provincial authorities of Chekiang began to persecute
the foreign priests and the native Christians, the emperor issued a special decree
in the following year securing toleration for the Christian faith.
(J) The Downfall of the Christian Missions in China. — The downfall of the
mission was brought about by French intrigue and by the disputes of the different
Christian orders and missionaries. The pope's patronage in India, to which China
was treated as belonging, had been transferred to the crown of Portugal. This
monopoly, however, appeared to conflict with the growing interests of France in
Further India and East Asia. The Pere Alexandre de Khodes of Avignon and the
Duchesse d'Aiguillon, supported by the French government, succeeded in obtaining
a decree from Pope Alexander VII appointing three French bishops to Siam, Tong-
king, and China. No foreign ship was to be found to take them to their destina-
tion, and this difficulty became the occasion of the foundation of the Compagnie
des Iiides (cf. Vol. VII, p. 104), which was afterward succeeded (after 1698) by
the various Compagnies de la Chine. At the same period the institution of the
Missions e"trangeres was founded in Paris, 1663, to provide a supply of clergy
for the projected missions. At the wish of Colbert a number of the pupils there
educated went out to China in 1685. There can be no doubt that trade and
political influence were the main objects which the French missionaries then
104 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter i
proposed to themselves, — a fact which explains the later animosity of the native
population.
It was, however, the religious dissensions of the missionaries themselves which
became the occasion of the suppression of Christianity in China. Even among the
Jesuits conflicting views were held as to the attitude which should be taken toward
certain questions (cf. p. 103). However, the chief points of difference centred
around the traditional worship of Kung fu tsze and of ancestors. Ricci and most
of the Jesuits could see no idolatrous meanings in these customs which they
consequently permitted, whereas the fanatical Dominicans, as afterward the
Lazarists and the priests of the Missions eirangeres, were entirely opposed to this
view. The popes declined to pronounce a decided opinion. Innocent X (1644—
1655) declared for the Dominicans, Alexander VII in 1656 for the Jesuits, and
Innocent XI (1676-1689) pronounced the ceremonies permissible in so far as they
were merely the expression of national veneration. Ultimately Bishop Maigrot of
the Lazarists forbade the customs in 1693, and characterised the representations
made by the Jesuits to the papal chair as false in many respects. The Jesuits
declined to recognise this decision, and in 1699 applied to the emperor Kang hsi,
who made a declaration in full harmony with their views. Meanwhile at Rome
the Congregation of the Inquisition had declared against the Jesuits, — a deci-
sion confirmed by Clement XI in 1704. At the same time Tournon, the patriarch
of Antioch, was sent to Peking to procure an adjustment of these differences.
He did not dare to publish the papal decree ; but Kang hsi, whom the Jesuits
undoubtedly used as an instrument to accomplish their designs, was informed by
them of what had happened, and acted the more energetically when Maigrot
declared against him and declined to recognise the imperial authority in a matter
which only the papal chair could decide. Kang hsi banished Maigrot and ordered
Tournon to leave China. The latter, being still unwilling to publish the papal
decree as such, made a summary of its contents and issued it as his own decision.
Kang hsi replied by arresting him. He was carried to Macao, where the Por-
tuguese were obliged to place him in confinement, and there he died in 1710.
Clement XI in 1718 issued a bull, "Ex ilia die," which threatened with the
greater excommunication any one who declined to obey the papal constitution of
1704, and sent a new legate to Peking, Mezzabarba, the patriarch of Alexandria.
Kang hsi absolutely declined to enter into further negotiations, but stated that
Mezzabarba, who had arrived in 1720, might leave the former missionaries in China,
but must return to Rome with all the remainder, where the pope was welcome to
issue any orders he pleased regarding them. He was himself the sole ruler of the
Chinese, and he forbade them to follow the papal decrees. Mezzabarba then pub-
lished the papal bull, with the additional clauses which allowed the practice of
the prohibited customs, considered merely as ceremonies of national veneration, but
this compromise produced no satisfaction either in Peking or at Rome. Mezzabarba
was definitely ordered by the emperor to leave China and take with him the mis-
sionaries he had brought. Pope Benedict XIII declined responsibility for the
actions of his legate, and confirmed the decision of Clement XI by the bull,
"Ex quo singulari," the terms of which remain in force at the present day.
Thus in the struggle between the temporal and ecclesiastical power, the former
had proved victorious and maintained its advantage throughout the following cen-
tury. It is impossible to say whether the methods of the Jesuits would have
'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 105
ultimately proved successful or have resulted in the conversion of China. At
any rate, the action of their adversaries both in China and in Japan precipitated the
outbreak of the struggle and accentuated its severity. Even under Yung cheng
(1723-1735), the successor of Kang hsi, persecution became fiercer ; and although
Kien lung (1736-1795) showed much personal consideration for the Jesuits who
remained in Peking after the dissolution of the Order (1773), none the less both
during his reign and that of Kia king (1796-1820) the bloody persecutions
against the native Christians and the missionaries who had secretly remained in
the country continued without interruption.
(c) The Revival of Christian Missions in China. — The state of affairs above
described continued until the years 1845 and 1846, when the emperor Tao kuang
(1821-1850) was induced by the proposals of the imperial commissioner Kiying,
who had approached him at the desire of the French ambassador de Lagre'ne', to
permit the practice of the Christian religion among his subjects. He issued an
order that any missionaries who might be found in the interior should be merely
handed over to their authorities in the harbours open to commerce. The conven-
tions of 1858 and 1860 gave permission to the missionaries to visit the interior of
the country and to take up residence there. Moreover, the decree of 1860, which
was falsified by a French interpreter, gave missionaries the right to acquire landed
property in the country. From that date the Catholic missions in China have
been able to develop undisturbed, apart from persecutions of a more or less local
nature. Before the Boxer revolt (1900), there were about five hundred and thirty
European missionaries and five hundred and thirty-five thousand native Christians
in thirty-one apostolic vicariates.
The oldest Protestant mission in China was the Dutch, which began in 1624
upon Formosa with the foundation of the East Indian Netherland Company, and
ended in 1662 with the expulsion of the company from the island. In 1684 the
last surviving Dutch prisoners were released, and with them every trace of the
activity of this mission disappeared from the island. Other Protestant missions,
especially those from England, America, and G-ermany, did not begin their career
until the acquisition of Hong Kong by England (1841) and the peace of Nanking
(1842). Like the Catholic missions, they have suffered under the various animosi-
ties of the authorities, the learned classes, and the population. Previous to the
year 1900 the Protestant missions in China numbered about forty thousand com-
municants and nearly one thousand three hundred missionaries, more than seven
hundred of whom were women.
M. THE MODERN HISTORY OF CHINA
(a) The Manchu (Ta Ching] Dynasty (1644-1820). — What conditions Wu
San kwei may have made with the Manchus when he joined their party, it is impos-
sible to say. On the Chinese side, it is often maintained that the Manchus secured
the supremacy over China by the violation of a treaty. On the other hand, it is
certain that upon their conquest of the country they received every support not
only from Wu San kuei, but also from a number of other Chinese generals who
were at first rewarded with vassal fiefs. After the capture of Peking, where Fu lin
ascended the throne under the title of Shi Tsu (Shun chi, 1644-1661), armies com-
106 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
manded by Manchu princes and Chinese generals were sent into every part of the
country to subdue the adherents of the Ming dynasty and the pretenders who arose
in every quarter. Li Tse cheng was gradually driven back to Szechwan, where he
committed suicide. Prince Fu, who had assumed the imperial title in Nanking, was
conquered in 1647; Prince Tang, who had been proclaimed emperor in Fokien (as
had Prince Lu in Chekiang and Prince Kuei in the west), was overcome with greater
or less success. Eventually, however, the Manchus were everywhere victorious. In
1659 peace was established through the empire, with the exception of Yunnan and
Kweichau, and the contingents still fighting in those quarters (the pretender had
fled to Burmah and was given up by that country) were overpowered in the course
of the following year. A son of the freebooter known by the name of Koxinga
alone continued to hold out in Formosa. His piratical grandfather, Cheng Chi
lung, had long harassed the southern coasts of China, and had then joined the side
of the Ming in the struggle against the Manchus. At first successful and after-
ward repeatedly defeated, he at length surrendered to the Manchus, while his son,
Cheng Cheng kung, upon being expelled from Amoy, had turned upon Formosa
and taken the island from the Dutch. Cheng Chi lung was executed at Peking in
1661 ; his son, who was named Koxinga by the Portuguese, died on the island in
1662. It was surrendered to the Manchus in 1683 by his son, Cheng Ko chuang.
Upon the occupation of the empire by the Manchus, their Chinese allies were
richly rewarded; Wu San kwei became the hereditary prince of Yunnan and
Szechwan, while Shang Ko hi and Keng Ki mau received similar positions in
Kwangtung and Fokien. When Wu San kwei revolted in 1674, the princes of
Kwangtung and Fokien supported the Manchus ; but their eldest sons, Shang Chin
sie and Keng Tsing chung, joined the rebel party. Wu San kwei died in 1678 ; a
few months later the revolt in the West was suppressed, and peace was estab-
lished throughout the empire in 1680. The emperor, Shi tsu, had died in 1661 ;
he was succeeded by his second son, a boy of eight years old, under the title of
Sheng Tsu (Kang hsi, 1662-1672), during whose reign most of the events above
detailed took place. During the revolt of Wu San kwei, the interference of the
Chinese became necessary in Mongolia, where disturbances had broken out in
consequence of dissensions between Galdan (Go Erh dan), the chieftain of the
Eleuthes, and Tsi wang, the chief of the Khalka. After two campaigns, in which
Kaiig Shi was present in person, Galdan was defeated and committed suicide
(1696). His former opponent, Tsi wang, made an incursion into Tibet, which
was under Chinese protection, and was only defeated in 1721 after a struggle that
lasted for several years. Kang shi also came into collision with the Eussians, who
were advancing in Siberia ; his troops conquered the town of Albasin, which the
Eussians had founded, hostilities being ultimately concluded in 1689 by the peace
of Nertchinsk. The welfare of the country largely occupied the attention of Kang
hsi, and in him Chinese literature found a zealous patron. During his reign were
published the great dictionary named after him, and the encyclopaedia, " Chinting
tushu chi cheng," in five thousand and twenty volumes, by imperial commission.
He was also the author of the " Sacred Edict," which consists of sixteen rules of
behaviour to be observed by the people, and to which his successors appended
many explanations.
He was succeeded by Shi Tsung (Yung cheng, 1723-1735), his fourth son,
under whom the persecution of the Christians was carried out with unusual
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 107
severity. More than three hundred churches were destroyed, and by the expul-
sion of all the missionaries, with the exception of those resident in Pekin and
Canton, more than three hundred thousand native Christians were deprived of their
spiritual pastors. Conflicts with the Mongols were frequent also during this reign,
and expeditions were made against the inhabitants of Turkestan, who were ulti-
mately subdued in 1734. Attempts made to bring Miaotsze, who had established
himself in Yunnan and Kweichau, under the Chinese administration were only
partially successful. This emperor died suddenly, and was succeeded by his eldest
son, Kao Tsung (Chien or Kien lung; 1736-1795), under whom the empire and
the dynasty reached the highest point of their prosperity. Revolts in Hunan and
Kuugsi, and at a later period in Szechwan, were suppressed, after a struggle lasting
nearly three years, in 1749. A long period was occupied by disturbances in Mon-
golia, which broke out in 1745, as a result of quarrels about the succession; a chief
cause was the action of Amursana (Amu sa na), who had at first supported the
Chinese, but raised the standard of revolt after the defeat of Davatsi (Tse wan da
shi), because only a part of the territory of the conquered prince was assigned to
him ; he was conquered in 1735 and fled into Eussian territory, where he died
shortly afterward of smallpox. As the princes of Kokand, Kashgar, and Yarkand
had supported Amursana, the Chinese armies advanced against them and possessed
themselves of their territory at the end of 1759. In 1769 Burmah was conquered
after several years' fighting, and made tributary, and the same fate befell Annam
during the years 1787 to 1789. A revolt in Formosa was suppressed in 1787, as
also was a similar movement at an earlier date by Miaotsze in Szechwan after sev-
eral years' fighting, in which the natives of this district were almost exterminated.
Finally (1787-1792), a Chinese army invaded Nepal and forced the Ghurkas to
declare themselves a tributary State of China in 1791 ; this expedition was brought
about by the invasions of the Ghurkas into Tibet, and their attempts to extort pay-
ments of tribute from that district.
These wars and the numerous journeys which the emperor undertook through-
out his kingdom, though they increased his reputation, materially contributed to
shatter the financial resources of the country. The difficulties and the rise in
taxation resulting from his policy no doubt brought about the series of calamities
which threatened the dynasty under the succeeding emperors. It cannot be denied
that Kien lung, like his predecessors, showed much interest in the welfare of the
people. The administration was reorganized, and the duties of the officials were
lightened by the division of the empire into eighteen provinces instead of thirteen.
On this redistribution, the province of Shensi was formed of East Shansi, West
Shansi becoming Shansi and Kansu, while Hunan and Hupei were created out of
Hukwang ; Pechili was formed of the district of Peking (the capital itself forms
the special administrative department of Shun tien fu), and Kiangsu with Ngan-
Hwei were formed of the province of Nanking. This distribution remains in
force at the present day. Kien lung abdicated at the end of 1795, that the length
of his reign might not exceed that of his grandfather Kang hsi (sixty years), and
died in 1799.
$ Under his successor, Yen Tsung (Chia ching or Kia king; 1796-1820), revolts,
probably instigated by secret societies, broke out in different provinces of the
empire, and were only suppressed with great expense and difficulty. On two occa-
sions attempts were made upon the emperor's life by members of a sect of " White
108 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
Lilies," and the southern coasts of the kingdom were harassed and plundered by
pirates. As is often the case with eastern empires, the presumption of the govern-
ment increased as its power declined. Under Kien lung the English ambassador,
George Viscount Macartney (afterwards Governor at the Cape; cf. Vol. Ill, p. 436),
was treated with the utmost courtesy in 1793, though he was unable to obtain any
diplomatic success. Under Kia king a Kussian count, Jurij A. Golovkin, was
sent back to the frontier in 1806, as he declined to perform the kotow before a
table covered with a yellow cloth ; and William Pitt, Baron Amherst, was expelled
from Peking in 1816 because he declined to appear before the emperor in his travel-
ling dress immediately upon his arrival.
(b) The Manchu Dynasty, from 1821 to the Present Day. — (a) From the
Opium War to the Conventions of Peking. — Before the reign of the emperor
Hsuan Tsung (Tao kuang; 1821-1850) China had certainly come in contact with
foreign nations, but if one leaves out of account the different embassies sent by the
Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Russians, and English, her relations with the powers
over-seas were neither friendly nor hostile. The foreigners who visited China were
either restless and dangerous freebooters who felt the weight of that power which
they themselves strove to exercise, or were merchants who were obliged to court
the favour of the Chinese people and officials for commercial objects. The mer-
chants resident in Canton, which for a long time had been the only harbour open
to trade, transacted their business by means of other merchants, and not through
the officials of the empire. The English also declined any other representation
than that of the agents of the East India Company ; and these facts, together with
the extremely low esteem in which the Chinese merchant is held by the popula-
tion, contributed to increase the overbearing behaviour of the Chinese. When the
monopoly of Chinese trade held by the East India Company expired in 1834, and
the English government took the place of the company, it became clear that the
foreigners must sooner or later acquire some legal status. The attempt of the
Chinese to put a stop to the opium trade became rather the excuse than the occa-
sion of the first war carried on by England, which broke out in 1840 and ended in
1842 with the peace of Nanking after some display of military capacity on the
part of the Chinese. From that time foreigners in China have enjoyed a legally
recognised protection, instead of being merely tolerated. At the same time five
harbours were thrown open to foreign trade, — Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ning-po,
and Shanghai, — and the island of Hong Kong, which the English had taken in
1841, was formally ceded. Compacts with France and the United States followed
in 1844; the arrangement with the French included facilities enabling the prac-
tice of the Christian religion (cf. p. 104).
The result of the first conflict with the European power had thus considerably
damaged the prestige of the dynasty, and in other respects the government of Tao
kuang was distinctly unfortunate. Eevolts in Formosa and Hainan, supported by
Mmotsze, who was only suppressed with difficulty, and by Jihangir in Turkestan
(1825-1828), necessitated great efforts on the part of China, and largely contributed
to increase the financial embarrassments of the government and to diminish the
welfare of the population. These facts, together with tribal quarrels in Kwangsi,
and nationalist exasperation at the weakness of the government's policy toward
the foreigners, caused the revolt of the " Long-haired " rebels (called Chang mao
Yi Sin, Prince Rung
Y-Yung
Chung Hou Li Hung Chang
FOUR EMINENT CHINESE AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
EXPLANATION OF THE PORTRAITS OVERLEAF
To/i lift : Yi Sin, /'/•///-•< /v'"/'.</, born January 11, 1833, brother of UK; emperor HieiiiYng
(1850-1861), foreign minister in 1861. After his brother's death, regent for the minor T'ungchih
(born September 5, 1855); tolerant, and a friend to reform, for which reason he was deprived of
his dignities in 1884; was recalled in 1891 as president of the Tsung-li-Yameu.
(From a photograph by Signer Beato, lithographed by Day & Son, in Robert Swinhoe's "Narrative of
the North China Campaign of 1860." London, 1861.)
!!<ittinn. Ii'ft : I'hmiij Him, the first real Chinese ambassador in Europe. In France, 1870-
1871; in 1879 concluded at Livadia the unfavourable compact concerning Kuldscha, which was
eventually rectified by the marquis Tseng (1881).
(From a photograph of the year 1863.)
Top riijht : Y-Yung, hereditary .17" /•'/ "/'*• K. T. Gear Khan 7Vw/, born 1839, in the. province
of Hunan, of one of the oldest families of China. Ambassador to the Russian court in 1879; in
1881 obtained the restoration of Hi from Russia; ambassador to London and Paris, 1882-1885,
to London and St. Petersburg, 1885-1886 ; member of the Tsung-li-Yamen ; died April 12, 18!)<>,
in Peking.
(From a photograph taken at the close of the 1870 decade.)
Bottom rii/hf : Li Hinuj <'!t'i/i<i, born February 14, 1821, in the village of H \veiliing in the
Hotel district of the province Anhui. In the academy of the Hanlin, 1848 ; secretary in ls53 to
Tseng kuo Fang, the governor-general of the two Kiangs, and father of the marquis Tseng ; in
1861, provincial judge in Chekiang, then governor of Kiangsu, obtains the honour of hereditary
nobility ; in 1870, is governor-general of Pechili and commercial superintendent of the northern
harbours ; in 1872, viceroy of the empire; conducted the peace negotiations with Japan in 1895
(assaulted in Shimonoseki).
(From a hand-coloured photograph by Sue Tay of Shanghai.)
"''] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 109
or Tai ping, from the motto of their later emperor), which took place under a succes-
sor of Tao kuang, Wen Tsung (Hsien feng or Hien fung; 1850-1861). The out-
break of the revolt took place in 1850 under the leadership of a certain Hung Tsiu
tsuen, who had enjoyed the teaching of Mr. Roberts, an American missionary, in
Canton for a short period, and had given himself out as the younger son of God
and brother of Christ. Advancing from Kwangsi to the Yangtsze, he quickly won
a series of victories, conquered Nanking in March, 1853, and there proclaimed
himself emperor. In the month of May of that year a detachment of the Taiping
troops crossed the Yangtsze and began their advance northward. After a number
of battles they got possession of Tsinhai, on the Imperial Canal, where they were
soon besieged by the imperial troops, together with a body of Mongol auxiliaries.
In April, 1854, a relieving army of the Taiping approached, and reached the town,
but after several small successes was driven back in the month of May beyond the
Hoangho by the imperial troops. The failure of this attempt decided the fate of
the revolt; the expeditions of the Taiping armies degenerated into marauding
raids, and the end would have come at an earlier period had not the government
been involved in further difficulties with the foreigners.
The attempts of China to avoid the practical issues of the conventions,
especially that regarding a settlement of strangers in the town of Canton (see the
plate, p. 113), brought about the second war of England against China, in 1857.
France, who had entered a complaint upon the murder of a missionary, joined
England. The capture of the Taku forts, and the occupation of Tientsin, brought
about negotiations and the conclusion of conventions (June, 1858), by which other
harbours were thrown open, and foreign representatives were also admitted to
Peking. When, however, the ambassadors of England and France appeared before
Taku, in June, 1859, with the object of proceeding to Peking for the formal
completion of the convention, the Chinese refused to allow them a passage, and
an attempt at force was repulsed with great loss. Thus broke out a third war,
between China on the one side, and England and France on the other. On August
20, the Taku forts were taken, the Chinese were defeated on September 18, at
Chang kia wan, and on the 21st at Pa li kiao, by Ch. G. M. A. A. Cousin Monta-
ban ("count of Palikiao"), and Peking was besieged on October 13. On October
18, the imperial summer palace (Yuan ming yuan), was destroyed by the Eng-
lish as a punishment for the treacherous capture and cruel treatment of the
English envoys, and new conventions were signed in Peking on October 24 and
25, which conceded permission for the foreign representatives to reside perma-
nently in the capital. The troops of the allies evacuated Peking, but retained pos-
session of Tientsin, the Taku forts, Shanghai, and Canton, until the accomplishment
of the conventions.
(/3) The Disturbances of the Last Forty Years. — On the approach of the allies,
Hsien feng fled to Jeho, where he died on August 22, 1861. When his widow, and
the mother of his only son, returned to Peking in September they allied themselves
with two brothers of the deceased emperor, Prince Kung (at the end of April, 1898 ;
see Fig. 1 of the plate, " Four Influential Chinese at the Close of the Nineteenth
Century "), and Prince Chun, to support the council of regency which had been (or
professed to have been) appointed by the late emperor. The women then made
themselves regents. The mother of the young emperor, Mu Tsung (Tung Chi
110 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
1862 to 1875), is the empress dowager of the Western Empire,1 Tsu hsi, of whom
mention is often made at a later period. On taking over the government, the
regents found the empire torn by revolts. The Taiping emperor was still resident
in Nanking. Since 1860 the Nienfei, a tribe of mounted robbers, had devastated
the north of the empire. In Yunnan, where a Mohammedan revolt had broken
out in 1856, an independent kingdom existed, Talifu, under the sultan Sulaiman
ibn-i Abdur-Rahman. In Chinese Turkestan and Hi, Yakub Khan was in power,
while Kausu and Shensi were almost entirely in the hands of Mohammedan rebels.
Nanking fell in 1864 (by Charles George Gordon), after the Taiping emperor had
committed suicide, and a year later the last bands of the " long-haired " rebels
were overpowered. In 1868 the Nienfei revolt came to an end ; Talifu fell in 1872,
the last fortresses of the rebels in that quarter in the following year, and in 1878,
as a result of the death of Yakub Khan, on May 31, 1877, the revolt in Turkestan
was suppressed. It had been ended in China proper as early as 1873. Hi (Kulja),
which the Russians had occupied during the disturbances in these districts, and
to which they had laid claim by the compact of 1879, concluded in Livadia with
Chung Hou (see Fig. 3 of the plate), was restored under the convention of St.
Petersburg, concluded by the marquis Tseng (see Fig. 2 of the plate), in 1881, in
return for an indemnity and a more accurate delimitation of the frontier.
Foreign embarrassments, unfortunately, did not allow the Chinese government
to concentrate their attention exclusively upon the internal affairs of the country.
In 1880 Japan seized the Liukiu Islands, which were tributary to China. French
action in Tongking and Annan led to hostilities between France and China during
the years 1883 to 1885. These ended with the recognition of a French protectorate
over these countries, which had hitherto been tributary to China, and in 1886,
England occupied Burmah, which had been in a similar relation to China.
More serious were the dissensions between China and Japan. Korea, which
was also tributary to China, had been obliged to conclude a convention with Japan
in 1876, whereby certain harbours were opened to Japanese trade. In 1882 fur-
ther compacts were concluded with Japan, to which China assented. But in June
of that year a revolt, chiefly directed against the Japanese, broke out, and was sup-
pressed by the Chinese. In 1884 the Radicals, in alliance with the Japanese,
revolted in Seoul, and, in the end, the people turned once more upon the Japanese.
China again quelled the outbreak, and was forced into a further series of negotia-
tions with Japan. In 1885 both powers agreed to withdraw their troops from
Korea, on the condition that if either party should be obliged to send troops into
the country, the other should receive timely notice. By this agreement, the rela-
tions of the two countries were improved during the following years.
The year 1891 was marked by one of those movements which recur from time
to time, directed against the native Christians and the foreign missionaries, — the
scene of action upon this occasion being the valley of the Yangtsze. Instigated,
apparently, by the secret society of the Kolao Hui, the movement soon assumed
much larger proportions. To the united action of the foreign ambassadors was due
the ultimate suppression of the movement. But the opportunity of convincing the
1 The mother of the emperor Mu Tsung was, under the name Yebonala, the concubine of Hsien feng.
But on the accession of her son she received, by imperial grant, the title given above. The lawful, but
childless, wife of Hsien feng was distinguished as the empress dowager of the Eastern Empire. — ED.
^a HISTORY OF THE WORLD 111
Chinese government of the unity and the serious intentions of the foreign powers
was not, unfortunately, turned to account, and the seed of later troubles connected
with the question as to the standing of foreigners and missionaries was thereby
sown. A revolt of the Tonghak sect in Korea led to Chinese interference in that
country in 1894 Japan raised objections, and brought about the war which ended
in 1898, with the peace of Shimonoseki (cf. above, pp. 52 to 53). The interference
of Eussia, Germany, and France saved the Liautung peninsula for China ; but the
claims which Eussia and France made upon China for concessions, in the way of
railways and mining concessions, began to exercise a disastrous influence upon the
general feeling of the country. In 1897 two Catholic German missionaries were
murdered in Shantung, and it became necessary for Germany to take more energetic-
measures to secure the safety of her subjects and their interests in China. In con-
sequence she acquired the possession of Kiauchau in January, 1898, which wa&
shortly followed by similar agreements with Eussia concerning Port Arthur and
Talienwan, with England concerning Weihaiwei, and with France concerning
Kwang-chau-fu.
These calamities affected the general welfare of the kingdom. The failure of
the crops for several years in Shantung, and general economic distress, which was
further increased by the concessions granted to foreign companies, called forth the
"Boxer revolt," which broke out in the spring of 1900. This movement, which
started at Shantung, was at first directed against the native Christians, then against
the missionaries, and, ultimately, against all the foreigners in Peking and Tientsin.
The emperor Tung chi died on January 13, 1875, after three years only of indepen-
dent government, and his cousin, who belonged to the same generation, Tsai tien
(Kwang hsu), the son of Prince Chun, succeeded him (until 1882 under the
regency of the empress dowager Tsu hsi). This choice did not correspond to-
Chinese precedent. Moreover, the new emperor remained childless, and, in 1898
acceded to the impossible projects of reform proposed by Kang Yu wei, which cul-
minated in a conspiracy against the former queen regent. Hence, in September,.
1898, Pu Ch'un, a grandson of the prince of Tun, and also a brother of Hien fung,
was appointed his successor. His father, prince Tuan, seems to have played a
strongly anti-foreign part in these events, and in this movement the government
and the court were also involved when its first victim, the German ambassador,
Freiherr Klemens von Ketteler, was killed in Peking on June 20, 1900. The
ambassadors and other foreigners were besieged for two months in the embassies,
and were relieved in the middle of August by European, American, and Japanese
troops. The Court fled to Shensi, while the troops sent out to China under the gen-
eral command of the German field-marshal, Count Alfred von Waldersee, under-
took various expeditions in the interior of the province of Pechili, whence
they expelled the Chinese troops, these operations lasting until April, 1901.
Lengthy negotiations led to the punishment of some of the chief culprits, the con-
cession of considerable indemnities, and the adoption of a number of measures to
obviate the recurrence of similar events. After the signing of the last protocol, in
June, 1901, most of the foreign troops were withdrawn from China. The Court
returned to Peking in December. Here the foreign ambassadors were received by
the emperor and the queen regent in January, 1902.
112 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter I
N. BETROSPECT
CHINA is the only kingdom on the habitable globe which has continued with-
out interruption from a remote antiquity to modem times. Though later in date
than Egypt and the kingdoms of Western Asia, yet its authentic history embraces
a period of two thousand five hundred years, while the comparatively high stage
of civilization evidenced at the beginning of this epoch implies another one thou-
sand five hundred years of previous development. The ethical system of Confucius
evolved from earlier traditions about the year 600 B. c. furnishes the guiding prin-
ciples of Chinese morality and political philosophy even in their latter-day forms.
The patria potestas, the influence of the family and of the clan, continue in China
to-day as they have existed for more than two thousand five hundred years.
Neither Taoism, which, though a far more elevated and poetical philosophy, was of
contemporary origin with Confucianism, nor Buddhism, which was introduced into
China some six hundred years later, have exercised any material influence upon
Chinese morality ; both degenerated into superstition and eventually disappeared,
whereas Confucianism remains at the present day the foundation of the domestic
and public life of every class of the population. The individual is not absolutely
despised in China ; this is proved by the idea, theoretically admitted and operative
in practice, that personal knowledge alone can make success either certain or pos-
sible. The individual is, however, inconceivable in isolation from the family and
the clan; precedent and custom existing for centuries hold him fast in chains
which though a protection and a support from one point of view prove an obstacle
to any liberty of development in any other directions.
Political influence has proved powerless against the old and deeply rooted cus-
toms of the country. Certain customs and usages undoubtedly exist which owed
their origin to the power of foreign dynasties and to the influence of foreign teach-
ing and example ; examples are the doctrines of Shamanism, and the practice of
human sacrifice at burials which continually recurs until the middle of the seven-
teenth century ; none the less Chinese civilization proved itself capable of absorb-
ing and incorporating foreign influences. The Tartar Mongolian and Manchurian
dynasties which have ruled and continue to rule China in part or in entirety have
all been subjected to the influence of Chinese civilization, and have in some cases
done more to maintain that civilization than Chinese nationalism has been able to
effect. The existence of these dynasties, the introduction of Buddhism into China,
and the presence of numerous Mohammedans in the empire are so much evidence
in contradiction of the wide-spread view that Chinese civilization is completely
stereotyped ; influences from Central Asia, India, in some degree from Japan, and
since the seventeenth century from Europe have left their mark upon religion,
philosophy, literature, and art, and more particularly upon artistic production.
Comparatively speaking, the fundamental principles of the family and of the State
may be called stereotyped in so far as education and administration, together with
the customs of the old State religion and the ancestor worship connected with this
and with Confucianism, remain unchanged.
The history of the Chinese Empire does not offer a wholly satisfactory picture,
but differs in no material respect from the history of other Asiatic peoples in the
past and in the present. Polygamy with its consequences, the harem and the
*"•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 113
eunuch, is the rock on which every dynasty made shipwreck. A strong man seizes
the power, overcomes his rivals and secures the kingdom or a part of it for him-
self ; his successors follow in his footsteps and increase or, at any rate, maintain
their possession ; then degeneracy begins. Eunuchs become the counsellors and
often the executive officials of the princes ; lands, titles, and offices are heaped
upon the relations of favourite wives ; governors and generals become more or less
independent, until one of them proclaims himself generalissimo and administrator
of the empire, drives the reigning monarch from the throne, and becomes the founder
of a new dynasty. Within the ruling families themselves murder is an ordinary
occurrence ; in the course of twenty-five centuries almost one-third of the rulers met
with a violent death. Harem government appears to have exercised an even more
degrading influence upon the men than upon the women ; at any rate, notwith-
standing the low position which custom and Chinese morality assigned to the wife
within the family and in society as a whole, we meet with a large number of
female members of the imperial families who take an important part in the gov-
ernment of the empire as regents during the minority of their sons (see the plate,
p. 90). The charges of licentiousness which are brought against so many of them
may be nothing more than the tittle-tattle of court society ; but they may also
prove that a predominance of masculine characteristics in a woman generally
coincides with a loss of virtue.
The unsettled character and rapid fall of the different dynasties have produced
but little effect upon the foreign relations of the empire, the size and the unity of
which has diverted attention from internal dissensions. The misery produced by
weak governments was lost upon the distant spectator in view of the overpowering
impression which a powerful and foreign monarch could produce ; remoteness and
inaccessibility have invested this country, which was to East Asia what Greece
and Rome were to Europe, with a mysterious splendour which has often led the
investigator to misestimate its actual condition. Antiquity has no monopoly of
such mistakes ; the reports of the Catholic missionaries during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries have contributed more than any other influence to produce an
exaggerated impression of the importance of China. These opinions continued
until the events of the years 1894-1895, after which exaggeration seems to have
rather proceeded to the opposite extreme.
These remarks are applicable to a number of inventions which have been
ascribed to the Chinese. Gunpowder, for instance, is said to have been a Chinese
discovery, but the country did not become acquainted with its value for artillery
purposes until instructed by foreigners during the fifteenth century ; and yet, there
can be no doubt that they were acquainted with it during the fifth or sixth century,
perhaps also through foreign influence. The production of porcelain begins with
the seventh century A. D., and it may be questioned whether the Chinese did not
first learn from strangers the use of the compass for maritime purposes, although
they are said to have been previously acquainted with its properties. On the other
hand, printing from wooden blocks was known in China five hundred years (922)
before its discovery in Europe (1440) ; moveable types, though but rarely employed,
were undoubtedly in use in China from the outset of the eleventh century. The
employment of coal is of much earlier date in China than in Europe ; at the salt
springs in Szechwan, with their simply arranged borings to a depth of seven hun-
dred metres, natural gas was employed for heating purposes centuries ago. Sus-
VOL. u— s
114 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
pension bridges of bamboo chains and wires more than one hundred metres long
are by no means rare ; dikes hundreds of kilometres in length protect low-lying
districts from the devastations of rivers and the inundations of the sea, and many
of the temples, pagodas, and palaces (see the plate, " Chinese Residences at
Canton ") justly arouse the admiration of the foreigner. Bronze founding was well
known in 1200 B. c. ; Chinese silk was famous in Rome and Byzantium and the
achievements of Chinese art in porcelain, celluloid, enamel, and lacquer ware, and
in hundreds of other directions is well known. These industries continued until
the period of the Taiping revolt ; as the Thirty Years' War and its devastations
inflicted wounds upon Germany which required a century to heal, so China suffers
to-day from the damage inflicted by this revolt, which was not ended until 1865.
Hence it would be unwise to draw any conclusions as to the future of the
country from its past. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the com-
pletion of much desired internal reforms would raise China from a passive to an
active and even to an aggressive State ; in this case, the country would then exer-
cise an influence difficult to estimate, in consequence of its vast territory and
teeming population. Tso Tsung-tang, the conqueror of the rebels in Kansu and
Turkestan ; Chang Chi Tung, who largely contributed to confine the Boxer revolt to
the north of the empire ; Li Hung Chang (see Fig. 4 of plate, p. 109), who died on
the 6th November, 1901, and since the year 1870, when the French missionaries
were slaughtered in Tientsin, had exercised a strong influence upon the future of
his fatherland ; Yuan Shi-kai, the former governor of Shantung and now governor-
general of Pechili, — these instances and many more prove that there is no lack
in China of men capable of understanding and providing for the interests of the
country.
3. KOREA
A. THE COUNTRY AND ITS POPULATION
KOREA, so called after the old Korai (Kaoli), has during the greater part of
its history been the apple of discord and the theatre of war between contending
neighbours. Jutting out of the continent of East Asia and extending over twelve
degrees almost directly north and south, this slender peninsula, little more than
two degrees wide in some places, is bounded on the northwest by the Yalu and on
the north by the Tumen-ula. Its western shores are washed by the Yellow, and
its eastern by the Japanese, seas, while in the south it is divided from Japan
by a narrow strait half filled with islands (see the maps, pp. 2, 58). Known to
Europeans through the Portuguese as Coria, the country was named Sila by the
Arabs in the ninth century A. D. (Sinra, after one of the Korean kingdoms of that
time) ; the Chinese name is Tung kwo, the Eastern kingdom ; the native name
is Chosen (Morning rest ; hence the country is known as " The land of morning
rest ").
Korea is divided into two unequal parts by an offshoot of the mountain range
of Manchuria, which may be said to form the northern frontier wall of Korea ;
this offshoot passes down the district from north to south, with many windings.
Of these parts the eastern is mountainous, and the coast falls sheer into the sea,
with few or no rivers, harbours, or islands, whereas the western side slopes down
CHINESE RESIDENCES AT CANTON
lAl'LANATION OF THE BUILDINGS OVKKLKAF
A characteristic feature of ( 'hinese architecture is its lack of monumental si/.- and solidity;
this is apparent in the lightness of the wood and roofing material employed. A- with the. I'oiv-
nesian natives, it is only in the huge suhstructures of terraces and flights of steps that square
buildings of monumental size are found. This feature also appears in the smallness of the scale
on which the various architectural forms are constructed ; even in the temples and imperial
palaces, space and size are only obtained by the multiplication and juxtaposition of small build-
ings within one enclosure. Freedom of artistic, taste and choice has been entirely repres.-ed in
China by the narrow-minded and jejune precepts of the authoritative architectural treatises, which
prescribe for every householder the proper number of pillars befitting his rank, give accurate;
measurements to' determine the proportions of every part of the building, and allow the architect
no opportunity to develop his own ideas, except perhaps in those parts of the structure which are
out of sight of the passer-by.
Chinese architecture employs vaulting, except in the case of substructures, only for gate and
bridge construction • and even here true groin-vaulting is often replaced by the use of overlapping
projections. Cupolas are almost entirely unknown to the Chinese architect. Certain tendencies
to true cupola form are to be found, though in scanty number, in the localities devoted to the wor-
ship of the. heaven. The wooden framework of the roof of every building, which in the interior
is sometimes left open and sometimes covered with sunken panels, supports the tiled roof, which
projects bevond the walls and is somewhat concave; this framework, is supported by wooden
uprights, the form of which is generally determined by the rules of architecture, but in many cases
by the lattice-work, which is a development from wabbling. The wall between the. uprights
supports no weight, but its own. It is, as Semper says, " when closely considered, merely a fold-
ing-screen executed in tile-work, a frame for hangings ;" so far from bearing any weight or sup-
porting the house, pains are invariably taken to represent it "as moveable, put in sideways,
entirely independent of the. weight of the roof." The pillars of the supporting framework, which
are usually round, generally of wood, only in the imperial palaces of marble, can consequently be
placed either before or behind or in the walls. In the first case, they form a verandah to the
front of the building; in the second case, they are invisible from without ; and in the third, they
appear as half-pillars. Their pediments usually consist of a simple rounded block ; the capitals
are often, as in India, bracket-shaped supports, often in the form of the dragon, the emblem of the
Chinese heaven and the Chinese imperial power, or of other fabulous animals. In other respects,
to quote Semper once more, lattice-work forms the main basis of decoration in Chinese architec-
ture. We have especially fine bamboo lattice-work upon the lower part of the, walls within, strong
trellis-work with daintily varied and sometimes exaggerated geometrical patterns in the outer
walls of summer houses and other airy buildings, carpentry in wood alternating with braneliery
and palings, especially in the balustrading which forms the transition from the massive substruc-
ture to the more lightly built upper floors.
The most impressive part of these buildings, which usually run horizontally, is, from the
artistic point of view, the roof, with its concave formation far overhanging the walls. The roof is
usually sloping, and anything in the nature of gables is exceptional; the tiles laid in regular
lines give it a ribbed appearance, and on the ridge, beam and extreme points of the roof are often
snakes, dragons, or other animal figures of clay, with open-worked beams adorned with dragons'
teeth. Roofs of this kind cover temples, huts, palaces, towers, and gates, and are even to be seen in
bare outline and without beam-work upon simple enclosure walls. But the greatest peculiarity of
Chinese architecture is the fact that this roof is often repeated two or three times above one build-
ing to increase the effect, so that a building may show several stories of roofs one above the other.
The well-known Chinese towers which overlook town raid country rise from nine to fifteen stories
high, each story being terminated by the overlapping edge of a roof; the perpendicular lines of
the stories are in some cases so far hidden by the projecting eaves that roofs with bells hanging
upon their edges appear to have been piled upon one another with no intervening stories. The
theory has often been advanced that the type of Chinese roof was an imitation of the Tartar tent ;
but Fergussoii has disproved this hypothesis by showing that this tent is usually conical in form.
The English investigator inclines to consider the typical roof as the outcome of Chinese taste com-
bined with practical utility, this form of roof being especially adapted to repel the rainstorms and
the sunbeams. Of high importance for the general impression of a Chinese building, whether
belonging to noble or to peasant, is the rich and often staring coat of colour which covers the
whole edifice with the exception of the massive stone substructure. The brick walls are covered
with coloured plaster ; the wooden portions of the building are brightly painted, and sometime*
even lacquered. The use of yellow and green glazed tiles seems, however, to be a privilege
reserved for the temple buildings and imperial dwellings.
(Clik'lly after Karl Woennaini, " (Jcschichte tier Kmist allcr Zeiteu mid Volkei.")
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 115
j
toward the Yellow Sea and contains the only rivers of any importance ; its
coast-line, which is much broken, offers many harbours and numerous islands at
the sea level. As might be expected from the configuration of the country, the
western portion is the more thickly populated, and consequently of the greater
commercial and political importance; at the present day only three provinces
are found to the east of the central mountain chain, whereas the western portion
possesses five, together with the capital of Seoul. The climate is marked by
great contrasts of heat and cold; during the spring the mountains are covered
with flowering azaleas, and the summer is tropically hot, whereas the winter is
extremely cold, and the tigers who come down to the plains from the snows in
the higher parts of the country bear the thick fur of their Manchurian cousins.
The area of Korea is about 218,650 square kilometres, and the population is
said by some to amount to seven or eight million, by others to exceed ten million
inhabitants. These, according to Baelz (see pp. 2, 60), belong to the Manchu-
Korean type, the former element predominating. In reality the population of
Korea has been formed by the blending of many northeast Asiatic races, among
which the Ainos are well represented (see p. 214). Strangely enough, the charac-
teristic type often bears a resemblance to the Semitic. But in the case of Korea,
as in that of the neighbouring States of China and Japan, nothing certain is known
either of its earliest inhabitants or of the origin of later immigrants, arid still less
concerning the time of these immigrations. According to the Chinese annals, in
1132 B. c. Ki Tsze, an adherent of the Shang dynasty which had been overthrown
a short time previously (p. 64), entered the country with five thousand followers at
Chosen, which at that time embraced chiefly the southern portion of the modern
Manchuria. He is said to have subdued and to have civilized the natives.
The Koreans also gave official sanction to this legend as the beginning of their
relations with China. It is impossible to say what amount of truth may be
contained in the legend; though perhaps Ki Tsze may have carried out the
undertaking not in Chosen, but at Fuyu, lying to the north of that district, which
at least appears to have possessed at an early period a civilization resembling that
of ancient China. Equally impossible is it to assign any definite date for the
introduction of Chinese and Confucian civilization. We only know that Confu-
cianism and Buddhism travelled to Japan by way of Korea.
B. THE EARLY HISTORY OF KOREA
UNTIL the outset of the second century B. c. the relations of Korea to China
may be described as a series of struggles between North China, which was often
designated at that period as the kingdom of Yen, and Northern Korea, which at
one period extended westward beyond its frontiers. In Korea proper there lay to
the north Chosen (Korai), and to the south two other districts, known as the West-
ern Ma han and the Eastern Shin han, both inhabited by independent tribes,
who appear in some cases to have intermarried freely with fugitives from China.
When the first Han dynasty came to power in China (see p. 76) it enforced its
rights to Yen by conquering the kingdom in 206 B. c. Fugitives from that dis-
trict arrived at Chosen, where their leader, We men, overthrew the king and
seized the kingdom in 194 B. c. ; his capital of Wang hien lay to the east of Ta
tung. The king, Ki jun, of Chosen fled to Ma han, where he was hospitably
116 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
received by the tribe of the " One Hundred Families " (Hiaksai), and became
their chieftain at a later period. This tribe afterwards became the dominant
power of Ma han, and the kingdom there formed received the name of Hiaksai
(also Kudara and Pehtsi). After the fall of the Chin dynasty (206 B. c.), Chinese
are also said to have fled to Shin han, and there to have founded the later kingdom
of Sin ra (Sila Sinlo), under Yu kio, the grandson of We men. War broke out
between Chosen and China in 108, which ended in 107 with the entire defeat of
the Koreans, the capture of the capital, the death of the king, and the occupation
of the kingdom by the Chinese. Their supremacy continued until the downfall of
the Han dynasty (p. 79).
C. THE MEDIEVAL HISTOEY OF KOREA
IN the meanwhile Kokorai, a new kingdom, had arisen to the north of Chosen
and south of Fuyu ; it came into contact and soon into collision with the Chi-
nese at the outset of the Christian era. These relations and those of the later
kingdom of Puhai, which replaced that of Kokorai, have had but little influence
upon the history of Korea. More important were the struggles between the
three States which had been formed within the peninsula itself, Hiaksai, Sinra,
and Korai. Hiaksai was the first of these States, and was strongly influenced by
Confucianism and Buddhism, both doctrines being firmly established there toward
the end of the fourth century A. D. Struggles with Kokorai, Korai, and Sinra
occupy a large part of the history of this State, which was subjugated by China in
1660. Ten years later a Buddhist priest raised the standard of revolt against the
Chinese, and with the help of the Japanese, set up Hosho, a son of the former
king, as prince of the country ; but Hiaksai was conquered, and a large portion of
the population emigrated to Korai and Japan. Korai, which had successfully re-
pulsed different attacks, at last succumbed to the Chinese, so that of the three
kingdoms only Sinra maintained some measure of independence.
During the period of the Tang dynasty (618-907 ; see p. 90), Sinra maintained
close connection with China, and its capital Chung-ju was the true centre of Sinro-
Korean civilization and of Buddhism. It was there that the Korean Nido alphabet
was discovered, which may perhaps have served as a model for the Japanese
alphabet. Sinra gradually absorbed the whole of the eastern half of the kingdom.
However, a war against Puhai, which was undertaken in 733 at the instigation of
the Chinese, proved unsuccessful. In general, the kingdom maintained its position
until 912, when a Buddhist priest, Kung wo, revolted against the weak reigning
monarch. Kung wo was soon pushed aside by the General Wang ken ; he declared
himself ruler of the country and made Phyeng-yang and Kai-chau the headquarters
of his government. In a short time he succeeded in subjugating the whole penin-
sula and founding a united kingdom under the name of Korai (he is said to have
been a descendant of the princes of ancient Korai). He now set up his court in
Sunto, situated more nearly in the centre of the country (the modern Kaiseng,
about fifty kilometres from Seoul), and died in 945. After long internal struggles,
his successor recognised the supremacy of China, which had been united under the
northern Sung dynasty (p. 93).
The king of Korai laid claim to Liautung, alleging relationship to the princes
of Kokorai and Puhai. In consequence, he came into collision with the Khitau
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 117
Tartars (Liau dynasty ; see p. 93), who were then at the height of their power.
The Koreans were rapidly defeated by the Khitans during the years 1012-
1014, and could only maintain their ground against their powerful enemies by
means of an alliance with the Nuchi Tartars (Kin). When the kingdom of the
Kin was destroyed by the Mongols in 1230, Korea made submission to the con-
queror; but the murder of a Mongol ambassador (1231) called forth an invasion
of the Mongols in 1240. After a long resistance, the king surrendered and betook
himself to the court of Mangu Khan in 1256 to acknowledge his supremacy in
person.
Kublai Khan, the successor of Mangu, made Korea the base of operations for
his projected attack upon Japan (see pp. 21, 96). There can be no doubt that the
Mongols largely contributed to increase the animosity between Korea and Japan
during the years 1266-1281, owing to the help given to the Koreans, the losses
which they suffered at the hands of the Japanese in the course of operations, and
the devastations upon the Korean coasts committed by Japanese pirates during the
following centuries. Korea had been and remained the teacher of Japan in almost
all the arts and sciences, and there is no doubt that a higher civilization existed in
Korea itself. Korean bronze groups, existing in Japan and dating from the seven-
teenth century, are proofs of the fact. But at the present day these arts have
disappeared in Korea and left scarce a trace behind.
D. KOKEA DURING THE TRANSITION FROM MEDIEVAL TO MODERN TlMES
(a) The Predominance of the Ming. — After the fall of the Mongol dynasty in
China (1368) the Ming issued a demand that Korea should resume the payments
of tribute that had previously been enforced. This the king of Korea, the thirty-
second ruler of the Wang dynasty, met with a direct refusal. But his army was
unwilling to march against the Chinese ; the king was deposed, and Ni Taijo, the
leader of the rebels, founded in 1392 that dynasty of which a minor branch is in
power at the present day. The new dynasty became entirely dependent upon
China ; the calendar and chronology, the administrative methods and the costume
of the Chinese were adopted, and present-day Korea, more than two hundred and
fifty years after the fall of the Ming dynasty, offers a faithful picture of China as
it was under the government of those kings. Ni Taijo was an energetic ruler. He
transferred the seat of government from Sunto to Han yang on the Han, now
known as Seoul (that is, capital), and divided the kingdom into eight provinces.
The list was as follows : Ham gyeng, Kang wen, Kjeng sang, lay in the order given
from north to south on the sea of Japan ; the other provinces in order from south
to north on the Pacific were Chel la, Chhung chheng, Kyeng kwi, Kwang hai, and
Phyeng an. Buddhism was almost entirely suppressed, and priests were absolutely
forbidden to enter Seoul ; a stern Confucianism practically became the state religion
of the country. To this dynasty is also ascribed the abolition of the custom which
had hitherto prevailed, and is probably of Tartar origin, of performing human sacri-
fice and burying slaves and others alive at the funerals of famous people. The
first descendants of Nai Taijo were vigorous rulers who increased the centralisation
of the government and advanced the prosperity of the people. As regards their
foreign policy, they were dependent, according to Asiatic custom, on both of the
two neighbouring powerful kingdoms of China and Japan, sending to both of these
118 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
periodical embassies, which theoretically, at least, were supposed to make payments
of tribute. These embassies came to an end in 1460, in consequence of the inter-
nal wars in Japan during the second half of the fifteenth and the first half of the
sixteenth century (p. 23), the downfall of the shogunate under the Ashikaga, to
whom these embassies were usually sent, and the uncertainty of communication
between the two countries, owing to the activity of the Japanese pirates.
(b) The Policy of Aggression of Hideyoshi. — This behaviour on the part of
the Korean government, together with Hideyoshi's visionary plans for the subju-
gation of China, led to the invasion of Korea by Japan (1592 ; cf. p. 31). The
Japanese won a rapid series of victories, conquering Fusan on the 25th of May
and capturing Seoul eighteen days later. The king and the court fled from the
town to Pingan (Phyeng yang). In July the Japanese reached the Ta tung. At
this river they fought a successful engagement, and were able to cross and capture
Pingan. The king fled to An-ju ; the advance of the Japanese was then checked,
owing to the fact that their fleet on which they depended for their supplies was-
almost entirely destroyed by the Koreans at Fusan. The contingents of Chinese,
for which the Koreans had appealed, now came upon the scene of action. Their
advance guard stormed the suburbs of Pingan on the 27th of August, but was
almost entirely destroyed by the Japanese on entering the town proper. The main
body of the Chinese, together with the remnants of the Korean troops, reappeared
before Pingan in February, 1593, and stormed the town on the tenth of the month.
The Japanese general, the Christian Yukinaja Konishi, was abandoned by his col-
leagues, who had taken up positions further to the south, and was forced to fall
back upon Seoul. Here he joined the other commander-in-chief, the Buddhist
Kiyomasa Kato. A battle was fought outside the town in March; the Chinese
were defeated and retired to Pingan, but the pursuit was feeble, since the Japanese
had lost heavily in the conflict.
Both sides were now glad to resume the negotiations for peace which had been
previously opened, and were chiefly conducted by the Chinese Chin I-kei. In spite
of the opposition of the Koreans and of Kato, a treaty was concluded, by which
Korea ceded the most southerly provinces to Japan and recognised her tributary
relation to that country. The old commercial relations between China and Japan
were to be resumed, Hideyoshi was to marry the daughter of the emperor of China
and to be recognised as the emperor's equal. Until the completion of this conven-
tion, the Japanese were to withdraw to the coast of Fusan, where they were to
garrison twelve strongholds. On the 23d of May, 1593, the Japanese evacuated
Seoul and began their retreat, slowly followed by the allies; further collisions
took place in the course of this operation which would have led to another out-
break of war had not Konishi's mediation been successful. The Chinese retired!
northward ; part of the Japanese forces were transported to Japan, and negotia-
tions were continued partly in that country and partly in Peking. In October,
1595, a Chinese embassy arrived in Japan, and was received on the twenty-fourth of
the month in Fushimi by Hideyoshi. However, the message with which they were
intrusted from the emperor Shang Tsung merely recognised him as " king of Japan,"
a title which had been previously granted to the shdguns of the Ashikaga family.
The war consequently broke out again. Chin I-kei, whose action during these
proceedings is by no means clear, was captured by his compatriots and executed ;
''] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 119
reinforcements were sent to Korea by both nations. In January, 1597, the Jap-
anese defeated the Korean fleet and made a triumphant advance to the neighbour-
hood of Seoul. But the destruction of their fleet by the united Chinese and Korean
forces again obliged them to retreat to the sea-coast. During their retirement they
utterly devastated the country and destroyed Chung ju, the old capital of Sinra. To
this action is to be ascribed the hatred which has inspired the Koreans against the
Japanese from that date (cf. above, p. 116). In the south the struggle centred
round the fortress of Urusan, into which, after fierce fighting, a large body of the
Japanese troops had been thrown. When the garrison had been reduced to the
extremities of famine, a Japanese army defeated the Chinese and Koreans who had
advanced to meet them, on the 9th of February, 1598, and relieved the town on the
13th. This final success of the Japanese brought the great war to an end. A
number of unimportant conflicts by land and sea took place ; but shortly before
his death, on the 8th of September, 1598, Hideyoshi recalled his troops to Japan.
Korea emerged victorious from this struggle, but terribly weakened. Eelations
with Japan were broken off until 1623, when lyemitsu, the second shogun of the
Tokugawa dynasty who had united the nation into a powerful whole, successfully
demanded the resumption of the embassies and their tribute. The first ambassa-
dors appeared at Yedo in 1624. However, the shoguns soon found the expenses of
these embassies, which were void of any practical meaning, too heavy, and discon-
tinued them. From that period communication between the two countries was
confined to Fusan, where trade was possible under strict supervision, to Tsushima,
of which the prince, apparently of Korean origin, had always been anxious to
maintain commercial relations, and to Satsuma. To the latter place Korean pris-
oners had been brought during the expedition to Korea, and they were there
employed as potters ; the town in consequence being occasionally visited by Korean
junks.
E. THE MODERN PEKIOD
KOREA maintained friendly relations with her Chinese neighbours. When the
Manchus began to threaten the Ming dynasty in 1616, the latter, in order to pre-
vent the incursions of their enemies, agreed with the Korean government to lay
waste a district on the right bank of the Yalu about one hundred kilometres broad,
and four hundred and eighty kilometres long. The villages were destroyed, the
inhabitants expelled, and on the Chinese side this frontier district was strengthened
by wooden palisades and a double, or, in some cases, a triple row of forts. When
the invasions of the Manchus became more frequent the Chinese government
applied to its vassal State for help, which was readily granted. In consequence,
the Manchus invaded Korea in 1627, defeated the allied Chinese and Koreans and
besieged Seoul, until the king, who had fled to the island of Kang hwa, gave in his
submission. No sooner, however, had the enemy retreated than he declined to
fulfil his promises. A new invasion of the Manchus followed, and in 1637 the
king was forced to conclude a convention whereby he definitely broke off his con-
nection with the Ming, gave hostages, recognised his position as tributary, permit-
ted the opening of a market on the frontier of Liau tung, and promised to send out
a yearly embassy to make payment of an appointed tribute. After the conquest of
Peking, this tribute was diminished on different occasions until it became abso-
120 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter I
lutely unimportant from a monetary point of view, while the periods for its
delivery were fixed at intervals of three years.
Christianity appears to have entered Korea at the end of the sixteenth century.
The first foreign missionary is said to have attempted, but in vain, to enter the
country in 1791. At that date the first persecution of the native Christians took
place. In 1835, a French missionary, P. Maubant, of the Missions e"trangeres de
Paris, succeeded in entering Korea, and was almost immediately followed by others.
However, in the same year three missionaries and one hundred and thirty native
Christians were executed. Other missionaries arrived at Korea in 1842, but the
persecutions continued and nine French missionaries were martyred in March,
1866 ; only three, including Bishop Eidel, succeeded in escaping. The French Gov-
ernment availed itself of this opportunity, and as the authorities in Peking declined
all responsibility for these outrages, an expedition was sent to Korea which de-
stroyed several forts, in October, 1866, but was forced to withdraw after suffering
several reverses from the Koreans without attaining any definite success. These
operations on the part of the French were followed by an American expedition in
1871, which was ordered to land and make inquiry into the fate of a schooner, the
" General Sherman," which had been lost off the coast with its crew. An attempt
was also to be made to enter into friendly relations with the Koreans. The expe-
dition was attacked by the Koreans, and after destroying a number of forts in the
neighbourhood of the Han Eiver returned home.
The Japanese were more fortunate. The mikado's government, shortly after
the restoration (1868), made a demand for the resumption of the payments of
tribute, which the Koreans rejected with scorn. In September, 1875, the sailors of
a Japanese ship of war were attacked by the soldiers of a Korean fort, and the Jap-
anese Government sent an expedition to Korea. On the 27th of February, 1876, a
convention was signed for the opening of the harbour of Fusan during that year,
and two other ports, Gensan and Ninsen (Chemulpho), in 1880. Eesident consuls
and diplomatic representatives were also to be admitted, and Japan was to recog-
nise the independence of Korea. We have already treated of the events connected
with this opening of Korea as they affected other powers (1882), the outbreaks of
1882 and 1884, the Chinese-Japanese convention of Tientsin in 1885, and the
Chinese-Japanese war during the years 1894-1895 (see the history of Japan,
p. 52, and of China, pp. 109, 110). We are therefore here concerned only with the
internal affairs of Korea in so far as they contributed to or were the result of these
events.
In the year 1864 the dynasty of Ni became extinct in the direct line. The
king Chul chong died after a reign of thirty- one years, without issue. The eldest
of the three wives who survived him seized the government and proclaimed the
son of the prince Ni kung, who was thirteen years old, as the successor of Chul
chong. Ni kung was able, however, to seize the power for himself, and he ruled
with ruthless cruelty until 1873, under the title of Tai wen kun (Tai in kun, lord
of the great court). The persecutions of Christianity and the execution of all for-
eigners were ascribed to the initiative of this regent, who was opposed to foreign
influence and progress in any form. Upon the majority of the young king I hung
(formerly Li Shi, 1873), conditions changed for the better ; an improvement most
probably due to the influence of the queen, whom he took in 1866 from the
noble family of the Min. The further history of the domestic policy of Korea is
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 121
entirely occupied with the bitter struggles between the queen and the Tai wen
kun, which ended with the murder of the former at the instigation of the Japanese
ambassador, Miura, on the 8th of October, 1895.
The Tai wen kun died a few years later, a helpless and broken man. The part
played by Japan and the Japanese in these domestic disturbances is by no means
wholly to their credit. The progressive party in Korea naturally associated himself
with Japan and looked to her for help. But the fact that in these different revolts
and political murders Japan played so large a part, directly or indirectly, throws a
somewhat discreditable light upon her methods of introducing her civilization into
Korea. The country has been cursed throughout its history by the ambitions and
the quarrels of the great noble families, the Min, Kim, Li, Ni, and others, and the
resulting conflicts have materially contributed even in modern times to impoverish
the country and provide opportunities for foreign interference.
After the murder of the queen, the king was for a considerable period in the
hands of those who had instigated the deed. On the llth of February, 1896, he
fled to the Eussian embassy with the crown prince, and did not return to his palace
for a full year. Since the 12th of October, 1897, he has borne the title of emperor,
probably with the object of emphasising his independent position, which is not
necessarily implied by the title of king. Korea has now become the apple of dis-
cord between Eussia and Japan, as it was formerly between Japan and China. The
various treaties executed between the two powers (among others that of 1896), have
by no means provided a solution of the Korean question. The " land of morning
rest " has, on the contrary, undoubtedly called forth these preparations in Japan
which have been pursued with feverish haste and have brought with them serious
financial embarrassments. It remains to be seen whether the treaty concluded
between England and Japan on the 30th of January, 1902 (p. 54), will produce the
intended result of maintaining the status giio in Korea.
122 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter n
II
CENTRAL ASIA AND SIBERIA
BY DR. HEINRICH SCHURTZ
1. THE EARLIEST PERIOD AND THE HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS OF
CENTRAL ASIA
IN comparatively recent times the vast highlands of Asia with their glittering
ramparts of eternal snow, their pasture grounds, their bleak deserts, and ver-
dant oases, were regarded with awe by the civilized nations of Europe. It
seemed that science, in harmony with the religion and the myths of so many
peoples, had succeeded in demonstrating by almost irrefragable proofs that Central
Asia was the primitive home of mankind, the cradle whence even our own forefathers
were sent out in the pride of youth to find eventually a new home in Europe, while
other brothers of our race descended into India, that sun-steeped land of marvels. It
was a splendid picture, that of a stream of nations rushing down from the snow-
encircled highlands, where the race of the new lords of the world had dreamed away
its youth in the pure mountain air ; a picture in which the fancy of the poet seemed
to combine with the clear and sober reality. Any doubts cast on this theory,
which satisfied both reason and imagination, could hardly claim attention. But
research, advancing from question to question and acquiring fresh knowledge, has
undermined and shaken, and in the end has overthrown, the seemingly inviolable
sanctuary of this belief. The truth is still to seek, but it has been shown that
Central Asia possesses, so far as we know, less claim than many other regions of
the earth to be considered the cradle of the human race. Least of all can the
highlands of Tibet, with the barren and rough nature of which we are now more
familiar, be considered the primitive home of mankind, the fountain-head from
which stream after stream of wanderers has flowed over the earth. The belief
in the importance of Central Asia for the earliest history of mankind was not
altogether irrational. As long as the beginning of human tradition was regarded as
identical with the beginning of the history of man, and the antiquity of the human
race was limited to a few millenniums, the thought was suggested that the original
home might be found in the heart of the Asiatic Continent. If, indeed, we substi-
tute "home of the higher civilization" for the expression "home of mankind,"
Central Asia deserves, even at the present day, the most serious attention of
scientific enquirers. Around this citadel of the world lay clustered in a wide semi-
circle the ancient countries of civilization, Babylonia, China, and India, and even
the beginnings of Egyptian culture point to Asia. All who believe in a common
fountain-head of these higher civilizations must look for it in Middle Asia, or must
assume that the germs of higher forms of life were carried through that region in
consequence of migrations or of trading expeditions. In later times the importance
C'KXTH
B A L V 6S' C H ! S
Printed in UieBibttt
Institut Icipzlg
sh Possf-ssioiis
Chinese Empire
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 123
of Central Asia for the history of mankind seems, indeed, much changed, but not
less perceptible. It no longer produces the germs of civilization, but, like an ever-
glowing volcano, sends out streams of warlike nomads, and shakes the earth far
and wide, so that smiling lands become desolate and prosperous towns sink into
the dust. From the earliest times to the present day mankind has been deeply
influenced by the existence of Central Asia and its races.
A. THE COUNTRY AS THE THEATKE OF HISTORICAL EVENTS
CENTRAL ASIA is the most continental region of the world. In a geographical
sense Middle or Central Asia comprises the self-contained interior of Asia ; in a
historical sense Siberia and the plains of Western Asia and Europe form an
appendage of this vast expanse. Central Asia, in the more restricted sense, is the
arid plateau, without any outlet, which is divided by immense chains of mountains
stretching from east to west into distinct regions, Tibet, Eastern Turkestan, and
Mongolia (see the inserted map of Central Asia). These mountain-chains partially
alter the bleak and desert-like character of the country, for moisture collects on
their slopes, and wherever the streams and rivulets which flow down from them
irrigate the soil, agriculture and the growth of a permanent population are possible.
If the rivers had an outlet to the sea, their effect would be still more beneficial, for
they would extract from the salt-impregnated soil the excessive amount of soluble
chemical substances and give it that inexhaustible fertility which is peculiar to
the alluvial districts of China, whereas they now lose themselves in brackish
swamps or disappear in the sand.
But this bleak and desolate region has not remained unaltered in the course of
thousands of years. In the tertiary period, which perhaps saw man develop into the
most distinctive form of living creature on the earth, a sea was rolling where now
the barren wastes of the Gobi desert and the basin of the Tarim extend : new
mountains were upraised and mighty masses subsided. When the sea disappeared
and Central Asia acquired its present configuration, a long time must have elapsed
before the land was changed into the sterile steppe which we know at the present
day. The glacial period, which filled Siberia with immense glaciers, hardly
assisted that transformation. The inhabitants of Central Asia therefore, at the
close of the glacial period, which must provisionally form the starting-point of
historical investigation in this field, were still living in a comparatively well-
watered and favoured region, which later became by slow degrees mere steppe and
desert. This is an important fact, if we wish to learn the significance of Central
Asia for the beginnings of civilization. On the other hand, the elevated character
of the country has not changed ; and this produces even in the southern parts a
temperate and almost cold climate, and has in this way exercised a lasting influ-
ence on the inhabitants.
Central Asia in the restricted sense is partly bounded, partly intersected, by
numerous chains of mountains, which by their trend from east to west are of great
importance for the character and history of the country and divide it into several
distinct sections. On the south the immense wall of the Himalaya divides the cold
plateau of Tibet so sharply from the sultry plains of India that the two countries, not-
withstanding their close proximity, have exercised little influence on each other and
have never entered into close political relations. Farther to the north the Kuen
124 'HISTORY;' OF THE WORLD
Lun with its offshoots divides Tibet from the desolate plain of the Tarim, which in
its turn is cut off on the north by the Tian shan. All three ranges meet toward
the west in an immense group of mountains, the centre of which is formed by the
Pamirs, so that on this side Central Asia is quite separated from the Turanian low-
lands. But even the rest of the high plateau of Central Asia, the Gobi desert with
the surrounding steppes, is bounded by a vast circle of mountain ranges of which
the most important are the Altai on the west, and the Sayansk and Yablonoi
mountains on the north. Beyond the Altai stretch the lowlands of Siberia, which
are separated from the plains of Eastern Europe only by the Ural range. On the
northeast, however, a chaos of mountains bars the way and fills up the greater
part of Eastern Siberia. In this direction, therefore, the migratory spirit of Central-
Asiatic tribes found least scope. The mountain ranges on the west were never any
permanent check on the movements of the nomads, who found in the plains of
Turkestan and Western Siberia room for expansion and growth of power. Toward
the south the Himalaya blocked their advance ; but on the east China, although
partially protected by highlands, lay open to the attacks of the peoples of the
steppes. Thus the trend due east and west, whrch characterises the lie of the
mountain ranges, is clearly noticeable in the migratory movements of the nations.
But it is not visible in the great wanderings of the tribes alone ; even the small
peaceful migrations of commerce, which are more momentous for the growth of
civilization than the devastating floods of nomad hordes and deserve our undivided
attention in a country which is the connecting link between Eastern and Western
civilization, follow the universal east-westerly direction. At the foot of these long
mountain-chains lie the oases, which, in the desert of the Tarim basin especially,
alone render it possible for the traveller to cross the dismal wastes. Even if traffic
was less difficult in earlier times, when the water supply was larger, it must cer-
tainly have adapted itself to the existing line of direction, and passed at the foot
of the ranges. The configuration of the country determines the roads along which
trade and civilization marched. The outlets for traffic were, on the one side, the
lowlands to the east of the Caspian Sea, which were in close relations with Iran
and the farther West, and with India itself ; on the other, China, the oldest home
of Oriental culture.
It is thus a most significant fact that the chain of the Kuen Lun, which runs
right through the heart of Central Asia, stretches with its offshoots and parallel
ranges, the Altyn Tagh and Nanshan, as far as the middle Hoangho, that is to say,
into the most fertile districts of China. Along these lines of mountains, especially
on the north side, extends a strip of fertile and more or less well-watered land,
which enables the husbandman to make a home there and opens a road to the
basin of the Tarim through the horrors of the desert. The importance of this dis-
trict, the modern province of Kansu, for the civilization and history of the coun-
try is incalculable. It was here that the persevering and stolid Chinaman first
waged war with the nomads, built a rampart of fortified towns and agricultural
colonies across the pasture lands of the unruly Central Asiatics, and thus dis-
covered the key to the political supremacy over the whole interior of Asia ; but
this road must have been taken in far earlier times by those who first brought the
manners and customs of the West and the East into contact, even if the people
which first introduced civilization into China did not follow that course in their
migration.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 125
Farther westward, through the valley of the Tarim, there are two practicable
roads leading from Kansu, a southern one which runs along the northern foot of
the Kuen Lun, and a northern one along the south foot of the Tian shan. The
southern road, the course of which is marked by the oases of Kargalik, Cherchen,
Kiria, Khotan, and Yarkand, is now disused ; the northern road with the oases of
Hami, Turfan, Karashar, Kuchar, and Aksu, thus gains in importance. The two
routes meet in Kashgar and lead through the western range to Ferghana. From
Hami, which is for China the key to Central Asia, there are other practicable out-
lets, farther to the north, leading to Turkestan and Southern Siberia, especially
toward the Hi valley, and along the northern foot of the Tian shan to the lake of
Balkash. Beyond the mountains therefore, in the plain of Turkestan, lie the com-
mercial cities which owe the greater part of their prosperity to the trade with Cen-
tral Asia and China, namely, Samarkand, Bokhara, Khokand, and Tashkent ; the
trade of the East with Europe, Western Asia, and India passes through them, but
they are also the capitals of rich districts, well watered by the mountain rivers and
streams, and strongholds of settled agriculturists in the midst of the restless
nomads. But Central Asia is not exclusively an avenue for transit trade ; it offers
products of its own, which attract the merchant and increase the economic re-
sources of the inhabitants. First and foremost come the minerals ; the most
important discoveries of jade and nephrite, both of which are still extraordinarily
valued in China, are made in East Turkestan. The Altai is rich in metals, which
at a very early period caused a special form of civilization to spring up in this
region. Tibet and some districts of Siberia possess prolific gold washings ; and,
lastly, salt, which is usually common on the steppes, is brought in considerable
quantities from Mongolia to China. Among the vegetable products rhubarb is
important ; it grows abundantly in Kansu, and from early times was brought to
the West as a valued medicinal article. From an early date Siberia and the North
of Central Asia have driven an important trade in furs with China and the West.
The products, however, which were most important for the inhabitants of Cen-
tral Asia, even if not for export, were supplied by cattle-breeding. This is the
primary cause of the great mobility of the peoples of the steppes, while it also
assigns definite limits to their advance, for it is only where his cattle thrive that
the nomad can live permanently, so long as he remains a nomad. Here again
certain limitations are felt. The nomads of the centre, who breed horses, oxen,
sheep, and camels, have been able to push farthest afield, since the steppes of Tur-
kestan, West Siberia, East Europe, Iran, and Western Asia offer suitable pastures
for their herds ; on the other hand, the migratory herdsmen of Tibet depend for
their existence on the yak, which only thrives in a restricted area, and have there-
fore been unable to undertake extensive campaigns of conquest, while the Rein-
deer nomads of Siberia dare not leave the region of the tundras. Similarly an
advance to Tibet or to Northern Siberia was difficult or impossible for the nomad
hordes of Central Asia; their movements, from economic reasons, had to be
directed mainly eastward or westward; they followed, therefore, the same paths as
trade. It was not until a late period that Buddhism by its pilgrimages produced
in Central Asia an important movement from north to south.
If the history of the surrounding countries is unintelligible without a clear
knowledge of Central Asia and its peoples, that of the region of the steppes in the
interior of Asia is still more so without reference to the civilized countries which
126 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
border it, to China on the east, the area of Mediterranean civilization on the west,
and India on the south.
India, which was repeatedly overrun by hordes of Central Asiatic nomads, for
a long period exercised little influence generally on the steppe region, and almost
none politically, since the barrier of the Himalaya was a deterrent from military
enterprises, and, apart from this, the natural features of Tibet offered no attraction
to a conqueror. The attempt made in 1337 by Djaunah Mohammed-shah ibn
Toghluq to push on victoriously from India to China was foiled by the Himalaya
and was not subsequently imitated. But here, as in so many other cases, the spirit
has been mightier than the sword. Northern India, that great seminary of relig-
ious and philosophic thought, gradually made its influence felt in Central Asia and
by Buddhist propaganda revolutionised the lives and opinions of the nomads. It
was, of course, a case of scattered seeds which were carried across the mountains
and struck root independently, and we must not imagine any permanent union of
Indian philosophy with' the nomad culture of the steppes.
China stood in a quite different position toward Central Asia. The highlands
of Western China offered, it is true, some protection against the inroads of the
nomads, so long as the favourable strategic positions were held by an adequate
force of well-disciplined soldiers, and this natural protection was designedly com-
pleted by the construction of the Great Wall ; but it did not always prove suf-
ficient. The policy, which the Chinese often adopted, of playing off the nomads
one against the other and of settling various tribes as border-guards within the
natural ramparts of the empire, sometimes led to the result that these guardians
asserted their independence or made common cause with their kinsmen of Central
Asia. The weapons with which China fought the peoples of the steppes were, at
all times, not so much the warlike spirit of her sons or the inaccessibility of the
country, as the highly advanced civilization, which rendered it possible for an ex-
tremely dense population to live on the fertile soil. The country might submit,
partially or altogether, to the attacks of the inhabitants of the Central Asiatic
steppes, of the Tibetans, and lastly to those of the mountain tribes of Eastern
Siberia, but the bands of the conquerors soon disappeared among the overwhelming
numbers of the conquered, and their barbarian strength could not withstand the
example of a higher culture. To political superiority the nomads might attain ;
to intellectual, never.
The civilized countries of Western Asia were better protected than China
against the tide of restless nomads. Between the Caspian Sea and the Himalaya
rise the mountains of Chorasan and Afghanistan. Eastward of these the fertile dis-
tricts of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, where agricultural colonies and fortified towns
could grow up, formed a vanguard of civilization. But between the Caspian and
the Black Sea the Caucasus rises like a bulwark built for the purpose, and cuts off
Western Asia from the steppes of Southern Russia, that ancient arena of nomadic
hordes. So long as the natural boundaries were maintained the fertile plains of
Western Asia were safe from the raids and invasions of the nomads. But the
people of Iran, which guarded civilization there, succumbed at length to the attack.
The nomads found homes to their liking in the steppes, which abound in Iran,
Syria, and Asia Minor, and consequently preserved their individuality far longer
than in China, and were only partially absorbed by the peoples they had
conquered.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 127
We have thus an explanation of the great difference between East and West.
China was never more than nominally subject to the nomads, and it finally crippled
their power by a systematic colonisation of the steppes, while the ancient civiliza-
tion of Western Asia sank beneath the repeated onslaught of the nomad horsemen,
and the country became for a long time an appendage of Central Asia.
Europe, the eastern steppes of which merge into those of Southwest Siberia
without any well-defined boundaries, was never able to ward off the attacks made
from Central Asia. The Huns advanced to the Atlantic, the Avars and Hungarians
invaded France, the Mongols reached Eastern Germany, and the Osman wave spent
itself against the walls of Vienna. This continent still harbours in the Magyars,
the Turks, and numerous Finnish and Mongolian tribes, the remnants of these
inhabitants of the heart of Asia. But Western Europe, with its moist climate, its
deficiency hi wide tracts of pasture ground, and its national strength and civiliza-
tion, suffered no permanent injury, but was able to accept the inheritance of West
Asiatic culture.
B. THE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
THIS brief survey of the geographical conditions of Central Asia clearly shows
the sharp economic distinction which separates the inhabitants of this district from
those of the neighbouring countries, — the difference, namely, between nomads and
agriculturists. Kegarded as remote history, the relations between the two seem to
be a continuous struggle, which shows itself, at one time in a violent onslaught,
at another in obstinate contests or cunning strategy, presenting a ceaseless spec-
tacle of bloodshed and destruction. Viewed from a nearer distance, this gloomy
picture loses much of its horrors, and we recognise that even in these parts war is
not the rule, but that the wish for barter and the interests of commerce continually
induced the representatives of the various forms of industry to enter into peaceful
intercourse with each other and to forget their ancient feuds. The economic con-
trast is for the most part less abrupt than we are at first led to suppose from the
great historical events in which this antagonism appears on so gigantic a scale.
Most nomads are more or less familiar with agriculture. We might assume
that the custom of cultivating suitable pieces of land on the rivers or in otherwise
well-watered localities was a result of predatory wars on civilized peoples. The
captured slaves would as a rule be employed merely on agriculture, since the mem-
bers of the horde were enough to tend the flocks, and industries could only flourish
in the sparsely scattered towns of Central Asia. But probably in Asia agriculture
is older than cattle-breeding on the steppes ; in fact, it is likely that in some cases
settled nations changed into nomads, although, of course, other nomad tribes may
have passed directly from the hunting stage to that of cattle breeding. Thus the
agriculture of many peoples of Central Asia can be traced back to old habits.
Where agriculture exists the social order gains in permanency, and the inclination
to predatory expeditions is checked, since in cases of distress, especially when
disease diminished the stock of cattle, men preferred to support their existence by
farming than by robbing their neighbours. We must not, however, regard the life
of the purely nomadic peoples as an arbitrary wandering to and fro. Among the
Kirghiz, for example, the summer pasturages are the common property of the tribe,
and each family selects its place there as it thinks best ; but the favourably situated
localities, which are suitable for the winter encampments, form the well-defined
128 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
private property of the separate families, and the tribal districts are as a whole
accurately marked out. The possession of cattle implies a right to pasturage on
a corresponding scale, which cannot be disturbed. The man who increases his
herds must also widen his lands. Thus in reality the nomads have as marked
an appreciation of ownership of land and of the importance of boundaries as the
agriculturists.
When the necessity of widening their pasturages was pressing, the nomads
would be much more disposed to make attacks on their fellows than on the civi-
lized peoples, who were agriculturists and town-dwellers. Nomadism is, indeed,
far from being an economic phase which can simply be substituted for agriculture,
nor can the pasture grounds of the herdsman be straight away appropriated for
husbandry. The economic methods of the nomad are, on the contrary, devoted pre-
dominantly to the utilisation of tracts of land which could not support settled
husbandmen. The restless nomad, ranging with his herds over the dry but grassy
steppe, utilises vegetation which could not serve for human food, and compels
these wildernesses, which nature has neglected, to yield him milk and meat. The
agriculturist can only make full use of the arid steppe when he is able to irrigate
it sufficiently for his crops. On the other hand, the land, which when once culti-
vated must support a comparatively dense population, is far too valuable to be
devoted with any degree of prudence to the feeding of cattle. A Mongolian
general, at the time when the Mongols conquered China, actually made the bril-
liant suggestion to his sovereign that all the Chinese should be exterminated and
their country turned into pasture land. But the idea did not commend itself even
to these barbarian sons of Central Asia. A similar plan may have been carried
out elsewhere on a small scale, though hardly with any conscious intent. In
Western Asia particularly the settled peasants were often exterminated by the
conquering invaders, the artificial system of irrigation fell into decay, and the
country of itself became once more a steppe on which the nomads could now
disport themselves unhindered. What chiefly drove the herdsman to attack the
agriculturist was the wish for his movables and for slaves, coupled with the
innate love of fighting and the desire to rule, — motives most characteristic of
the migratory herdsman. He seldom coveted the land of the agriculturist.
A prolonged study of the historical traditions, which delight in recording the
wars, murders, and ravages of the nomads, and picture the absolute terror with
which the invasions of these roving Asiatic tribes filled the hearts of the sur-
vivors, might well lead us to regard the perpetrators of such horrors in the darkest
colours, and to consider them as a species of ravenous wild beasts rather than as
beings deserving the name of men. But such a view would be premature. When
peaceful intercourse prevails between the settled inhabitants and the nomads (and
this is rather the rule than the exception), the nomads appear in a better light.
The civilized man is the superior in the peaceful contest, which is ultimately seen
in all intercourse for trade and barter. But the sympathies of the impartial spec-
tator will rather be with the nomad, whose good qualities are absolutely fatal to
him ; and perhaps it is intelligible that war should sometimes seem to the nomad
the only way out of his difficulties. Certain characteristics of the nomads are
conspicuous in both cases.
The nature of the herdsman, who grows up on the monotonous steppe, and in
consequence of his wanderings is forced to limit his possessions to a few movables,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 129
has a simplicity which is not devoid of dignity (cf. the explanation of the plate,
p. 158). The wide, clear horizon of his home is reflected in his temperament.
The flowers of imagination and thought which blossom so magnificently in the
burning plains of India or the luxuriant gardens of Iran, find no nourishment in
the steppe. A sober clearness of thought is as characteristic of the inhabitant of
Central Asia as of the Arab who grew up on similar soil (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 253).
This simplicity of thought, which can degenerate into narrow-mindedness, gives
all the greater scope to the will. A reckless strength of will is ultimately the
weapon with which the nomad fights, and not infrequently subdues and governs,
his intellectual superiors. Where this weapon cannot be used, the artless nature
of the nomad yields to the cunning and cleverness of his civilized neighbours.
The rugged honesty, which is a natural result of his simple, independent existence
and has always distinguished the roaming herdsman (the Scythians are called by
Homer " the most upright of men," —
ayavaiv
IL. xiii. 5, 6)
makes the nomad the favourite victim of the crafty dealers in the towns, and the
butt of their wit. Heinrich Moser has admirably described how the Kirghiz are
duped and hoaxed in the bazaars of Turkestan by the settled Sarts, and admits
that in integrity and moral purity the Kirghiz, notwithstanding his robber pro-
clivities, is far superior to the inhabitants of the town. Many an orgy of hideous
cruelty, celebrated by victorious nomads, is no longer incomprehensible when we
recognise these conditions which are everywhere characteristic of the intercourse
between the herdsman and the town-dweller.
These outbursts of savagery, which are in strange contrast to the ordinary
harmless and even friendly behaviour of the nomads, are frequently due to a
second cause. The life of the roving herdsman does not demand that continual
and regular expenditure of energy which claims the physical powers of the agri-
culturist throughout practically the whole year, and yet, thanks to its simplicity
and the constant open-air existence, it does not render him enervated or weak.
The nomad can thus always draw on a large reserve of strength, which has perhaps
long been concealed, and bursts out only when an object for action is presented.
What he has once begun he carries out thoroughly, especially robbery and murder.
Notwithstanding all this lust of destruction, traits of generosity and honesty ap-
pear from time to time. Even chivalry is not unknown to the nomads ; the mem-
bers of the Turkish race are renowned for it, and it is still kept up and honoured
as a virtue among the modern Magyars, a settled nomad nation.
This clear simplicity of thought and strength of will explain how the nomad
becomes so easily the master of more settled peoples, who, partly enervated by
civilization, partly disposed to inaction by an excess of imagination or of com-
mercial spirit, or, finally, from hard daily work, have lost the habit of looking at
things from a broad point of view. The nomad knows how to produce order.
He remorselessly hews his path through the rank undergrowth that springs up in
such wild luxuriance on the soil of an old civilization, and lets light and air into
the stifling heat. He creates no civilization of his own, but he is an indirect agent
in its promotion, since he breaks down the barriers between the countries and cre-
ates world-empires, whose boundless horizon awakes once more the thought of the
VOL. n— 9
130 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter it
unity of the human race, even when such thought seemed choked by a system of
petty States and the self-complacency which that engenders. The result indeed
shows that the garnered work of innumerable generations, as embodied in culture,
is stronger than the unbridled energy of the nomad. Even the wildest peoples of
the steppes bow their proud necks at last before the power of thought and the
subtle coercion of a higher civilization.
O. THE PKEHISTORIC PERIOD
THE perspective of history, which in any case makes the recent event appear
of gigantic size and dwarfs the more remote, must necessarily present peculiarly
incorrect pictures when applied to a region which is still the most inaccessible to
the student of origins. Immense intervals of time shrivel up into nothing, and
events which have been determinative for the existence of the whole human race
are, from want of all direct evidence, brought before our eyes only blurred and
indistinct. The beginnings of the development of mankind must perforce be dis-
missed from consideration. If we suppose that the original home of mankind lay
somewhere in the southeast of Asia, as the discovery of the Pithecanthropus erectus
by E. Dubois in Java (1891-1892) rendered probable, then the rest of the globe
may have been early populated from this source. But we cannot speak definitely
on this point. It has been shown that man was a contemporary of the mammoth
in Siberia. An attempt at a connected historical account must start provisionally
with the end of the glacial period, since from that epoch onward no extensive
changes of climate or of the earth's surface have taken place. The increasing
desiccation of Central Asia is, for instance, important in itself, but cannot be
compared with the stupendous phenomenon of the Ice Age.
Two main types, which recur in Europe, are represented among the peoples
of Central Asia and Siberia in varying combinations. There is a dolichocephalic
race, which was perhaps originally allied to the negro, but has acquired in the
north a light complexion and partly also fair hair, and a brachy cephalic race, also
comparatively light-complexioned, whose purest representatives we may at present
find among the Mongols and Northern Chinese. Besides these, a pigmy race may
have been sparsely distributed, as prehistoric discoveries in Europe and early ac-
counts from China and Japan attest; but this gradually disappeared among the
others, and attained no importance for civilization. The relation of the long-
headed tribes to the short-headed has become all the more important. At the
present day the short head is predominant in Central Asia ; but that is a result
which has been preceded by many important stages of evolution. According to all
appearances long-headed races filled the North of Europe and Asia at the close of
the Ice Age, and they certainly predominated in both continents, with the excep-
tion of certain regions of Central Asia. The remnants of these dolichocephalic
peoples in Asia are probably the Ainos in Yezo and Saghalien, the Yenissei-
Ostiaks who have preserved their ancient tongue in the midst of tribes speaking a
Mongolian and Finno-Ugrian language, and other fragments of nationalities in
Siberia. In the South the long-heads are again predominant in the mixed popu-
lation of Tibet. Many of these primitive dolichochephalic nations have devel-
oped in Northern Europe, and partly in Northern Asia, under the influence of
the climate into fair-haired and blue-eyed men; among the Siberians and the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 131
inhabitants of Central Asia large numbers of these can still be found. Probably
long heads and also a dark skin are the peculiarities common to primitive man.
Granted that the fair-skinned races were developed under the influence of the
climate, the short-headed race is perhaps a variety which is explicable by the
relaxation of the struggle for existence which growing civilization induced. We
may find parallels in the domestic animals, in which the same fundamental cause
leads to all sorts of changes, — to gigantic or diminutive growth, to wool-like hair
or different coloured hair, and so on. A very frequent example of these transfor-
mations is the shortening of the skull, which has been observed as " pug-head "
in dogs, goats, horses, pigs, and even gold-fish. Mankind may have equally passed
through a period when varieties of this kind were possible, until gradually the
exclusive preference given to brain-work checked further transformations, and
stereotyped the existing differences so far as they were not compensated to some
degree later by intermixture. At the present day the body no longer adapts itself
to new duties, but the brain devises new instruments and safeguards for it. Simi-
larly the constructive forces of the body no longer play with their material, but
the spirit finds an outlet for the superfluous energy in dances, games, and art-pro-
ductions. This theory may be correct or not ; in any case, a short-headed race
developed in Asia in early times and in the course of history occupied the greater
part of that continent as well as large districts of Europe. Innermost Asia may
possibly have been the primitive home of this race. It cannot at present be
definitely settled whether it grew up in Tibet, as Karl Eugen Ujfalvy assumes, or
in Mongolia, as Augustus H. Keane asserts on better grounds, or, lastly, farther
west in Turkestan and even Iran.
The beginnings of a higher civilization seem to start from this race. The first
gleam of credible historical knowledge shows to us in the west and east of Asia,
in Babylonia and China respectively, a brachycephalic people as the representa-
tives of civilizations which are so closely related in their main features as to sug-
gest, with almost overwhelming force, a former connection between these peoples
or at least their manners and customs. That civilization was based on agriculture
by means of the plough, and on stock-breeding, that is, on the same foundation as
our modern farming. These are by no means obvious achievements which must
necessarily have been made by every progressive people ; the contrary is proved
by the instance of the civilized nations of America, who were ignorant of the
plough or beasts of draught, and adhered to the use of the mattock, although in
other respects their husbandry stood on a high level. In Eastern as well as Western
Asia wheat was originally the chief cereal. Even stock-breeding which at first
was almost exclusively cattle-breeding, shows similar features in both regions. In
ancient Babylonia, as in China even to-day, cattle were used exclusively for draw-
ing burdens and for food, and no use was made of their milk. In this respect the
two civilized peoples are sharply differentiated from the nomads, who later inter-
rupted the connection between east and west, for the existence of the wandering
herdsman depended mainly on the milk of his herds. Horse-breeding appears to
have been already practised at the time when the two civilizations were still in
contact or arose in a common original home. Here, again, a peculiarity appears.
The horse is not ridden, but is used only for draught, and nothing is known of
the value of mare's-milk, the favourite drink of the Scythians (l7nrrjiAo\ywv) and
Mongols.
132 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
Another peculiarity common to both the ancient civilized peoples is their ac-
quaintance with copper and bronze, so that we may regard the short-headed races
as inventors of metal-working. This fact is important for Europe. There also
short-headed tribes, following the range of the Alps, migrated in early times from
the east, and spread the knowledge of casting bronze as far as Britain. Another
similar stream of civilization reached Southern Siberia, where the rich copper
mines and gold mines of the Altai favoured the growth of a peculiar bronze cul-
ture. The investigation of primitive history will in course of time cast more light
on all these conditions, especially when excavations can be made on a large scale
in Chinese soil. Comparative philology and the investigation of myths will aid in
the task and will lead, perhaps, to many astonishing results. Let us refer, for the
sake of an example, to the dragon-myth, which appears in the east and west, but
in China apparently in an older form, which sees in the winged celestial snake a
beneficent deity, while in the west the younger gods of light are usually imagined
as conquering the dragon of cloud and storm.
Supposing that the original home of civilization did not lie in Central Asia,
still the union of the two most ancient civilizations must somehow have been pro-
duced by this region. Thus the immense importance of Central Asia for the his-
tory of mankind is at once patent. For the rest, the expression " original home of
civilization " is, perhaps, premature. It is probable that isolated productions of
this ancient Asiatic civilization were at first made in different places, until they
were exchanged and combined. But if there really was an original home, it could
hardly have lain in East Asia ; for the abodes of the primitive Chinese people in
Northern Shensi, namely, in the immediate vicinity of the gate of Kansu, point,
together with certain traditions, to an immigration from the west, of which Ferdi-
nand von Richthofen assumes the oasis of Khotan to have been the starting-point.
For the present we practically know nothing of the origin of the short-headed
aborigines of Babylonia, the Sumerians (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 4).
This much therefore can be stated with tolerable certainty, that an ancient
civilization depending on agriculture, stock-breeding, and the knowledge of bronze,
whose representatives were peoples of a short-headed race, developed in Central
Asia or its western frontiers. Under the influence of this civilization the popula-
tion increased, so that emigration and colonisation were possible in various direc-
tions. In this way tribes of the northern as well as of the southern long-headed
race may have been influenced and won over to this higher civilization. The
Egyptian civilization is certainly only an ancient and independent offshoot of the
Babylonian (cf. Vol. III). The influence of the ancient Central Asiatic culture
seems to have made itself felt toward the south. We find, for example, that cattle-
breeding without dairy-farming existed in pre-Aryan India. Where the effects of
this civilization did not extend, we find the oldest economic state prevailing, — that
of hunting, fishing, etc., or at any rate of the use of the mattock, which must be
reckoned the first step toward agriculture. This first epoch ends roughly with the
close of the fourth millennium B. c.
D. THE RISE OF NOMADISM
THE view that agriculture is older than nomadism contradicts the traditional
idea which makes the stages of subsistence by natural products, of cattle-breeding,
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 133
and of agriculture, follow one after another as regular steps in development. But
this notion, which has so long stood in the way of a sound comprehension of the
most ancient questions of civilization, has long been doubtful, and has finally been
dismissed by the splendid labours of Eduard Hahn. The oldest agricultural peoples,
who broke up the ground with the plough, were also the first cattle-breeders. This
does not imply that men tamed oxen and horses from the very first with the con-
scious intention of using them as beasts of draught. Comparative ethnology teaches
us that even now primitive peoples, who tame all sorts of animals, first do so to
make pets or companions of them, before they think of turning the animals to any
profitable use. This does not exclude the possibility that religious conceptions
may have first prompted them to domesticate animals (cf. Vol. Ill, for the worship
of animals in Egypt). But we push matters too far if we see in the early adopted
custom of gelding the bulls any special proof that cattle were bred at first for pur-
poses of worship. The restive males would thus be only made more tractable and
prepared for hard toil at the plough, while the whole chaos of licentious and bar-
barous cults, which was later connected with this rite, only arose much later.
So long as the breeding of cattle and subsequently of horses continued to be
closely bound up with agriculture, and so long as the milk of the female animals
was not used, there could be no idea of nomadism. It was the use of milk that
first enabled whole nations to depend on the possession of flocks and herds for
their existence, without checking too greatly the increase of their animals by
excessive slaughtering. This food first made the arid tracts of steppe habitable
and actual sources of prosperity and power. But the nature of their homes and
pastures forces these peoples to make continual and systematic migrations, and thus
stamps on the whole sphere of their material civilization a trait of mobility and
uncertainty, while it marks their character with a mixture of unrest and aggressive-
ness which from time to time recurs prominently in history. This new economic
form of nomadism cannot have arisen suddenly ; it assumes the breeding of such
animals as secrete a continuous and large quantity of milk. This is, again, a
result of long custom ; for the female animals of themselves give only as much
milk as is necessary for the early nourishment of their young ones, after which
time the supply dries up. The laborious and tedious breeding of milk-giving
breeds of cows and soon afterward of mares was not accomplished by the short-
headed civilized nations, among whom the Chinese to the present day despise
milk, but apparently by long-headed tribes. We now see Aryan-speaking nomads
in the north and Semitic-speaking nomads in the south appear on the scene as
economic and political powers. The civilization of China still remained uninflu-
enced by them ; for this very reason nomadism must have originated on the steppes
of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, not in Central Asia. In Babylonia, the old
empire of Sumerian civilization had been overthrown by Semitic nomads before
the year 3000 B. c. After that date the conquerors and conquered gradually
amalgamated and appeared next in history as Babylonians (cf. Vol. III). Other
Semites as migratory herdsmen kept to that way of life, of which the oldest
narratives in the Bible draw so pleasing a picture.
Still more momentous was the first appearance in history of the Aryan nomads.
The old dispute as to the origin of the Aryans cannot be answered, because the
whole problem has been put so wrongly. Two totally distinct questions have been
jumbled together, namely, what was the origin of the blond or at least light-coloured
134 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
dolichocephalic peoples, the majority of whom now employ Aryan dialects, and
what was the starting-point of the Aryan language ? Of the first question we have
already spoken. The fair-skinned dolichocephalic peoples are a race of men which
has developed under the influence of the cool climate out of the long-headed tribes
spread over the whole of Europe and the greater part of Asia since the deluge.
The original Aryan language, on the other hand, may have begun, as some good
linguists maintain, in the lowlands of Eastern Europe. It is easy to draw the
inference that precisely this commencement of a nomadic way of life and the
necessary migrations go far to explain the extraordinary dissemination of Aryan
dialects. In this connection one further point is to be considered ; since nomad-
ism first developed from agriculture through all sorts of intermediate forms, it
seldom appears at first in a pure form as a method of life exclusively based on
cattle-breeding, but as always more or less connected with agriculture. It is clear
from this that the ancient migratory peoples possessed, in addition to their mobility,
great powers of adaptation, and were not restricted to the steppes and large tracts
of pasture. Where cattle-breeding was insufficient, agriculture came into the fore-
ground as later in Western Europe or in the highlands of Iran owing to increasing
population. It is a significant fact that in the tribal legend of the nomad Scythian
the plough and yoke are mentioned as the earliest property, and that the Scythian
steppe more than two thousand years ago exported large quantities of grain through
the agency of Greek trading-towns in the Crimea.
The great historical events with which the Aryan nomads appear on the scene
are the conquest and the Aryanisation of Iran and India. The wave of nations may
have rolled in the third millennium B. c. from Eastern Europe over the Turanian
steppe to the south and have first flooded Eastern Iran, until an outlet was made
through the valley of Cabul, through which a part of the Aryans flowed into India,
then inhabited by dark and dolichocephalic tribes (cf. for the further development
of the Aryan Iranians and Indians the second chapter in the fourth main section of
this volume and Vol. III).
A large number of the nomads remained behind in the steppes of Eastern
Europe and Western Siberia, where they were already known to the earliest Greek
authorities as Scythians. Probably all the nomad tribes of the great lowlands of
Asia and Europe were comprised under the name " Scythians " in the wider sense,
and among them probably were represented peoples speaking a non-Aryan lan-
guage. In the more restricted sense the word signifies the migratory herdsmen
of the region, who spoke Iranian dialects, and thus showed their affinity to the
Iranians and Indians, who had been pushed farther toward the south. The Sacse,
Massagetae, Sarmatians, and Scolotoe in particular were demonstrably akin to the
Iranians (cf. VoL IV, p. 72). These tribes, although they practised agriculture
to some extent, depended for their existence mainly on the possession of flocks
and herds, mares and cows being especially important as givers of milk. The
Scythians long showed no wish to penetrate into the mountainous civilized country
of the Balkan peninsula, or to push on over the Caucasus into the region of the
Assyrio-Babyloniau civilization. Iran was protected by their own kinsmen, who
gradually settled there. On the other hand, they certainly spread widely toward
the east, perhaps beyond the Altai, where other tribes gradually imitated them in
their way of life. Numerous blond nomads are found at a subsequent period in
West Central Asia.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 135
The discovery of the art of riding on horseback gave another characteristic to
nomad life. The wild horse appears to have been domesticated by the short-headed
civilized peoples at an early period, though doubtless later than the ox, and to have
been employed for draught purposes. We use the term " early period," for the
Chinese at all times used the horse to draw the war chariots, as did the Babylonians.
But this was not at a very early period, for the Egyptians obtained horses through
the nomad Hyksos, and did not possess them from the beginning (cf. VoL III, 623).
The horse was employed at first by the nomads to draw their wagons, until they
acquired the art of riding, and by that means enormously increased their mobility.
It cannot yet be decided with complete certainty whether the Aryans of India on
their migrations were acquainted with riding. It is indisputable that the Scythians
by Homeric times were a nation of horsemen.
The nomad tribes became acquainted with iron at a later period than the set-
tled civilized nations. The Iranian Massagetae in the modern Turkestan, when
they fought their battles with the Persians in the time of Cyrus, were familiar with
only copper and gold. Both these metals were obtained from the mines in the
Altai, and probably also from the old mining district of the Caucasus.
The great Aryan migrations completely interrupted the connection between the
old civilizations of the east and west, if such connection still existed. The Chinese
nation has continued its independent development, although it has by no means
remained quite stiff and impervious to external influences. Any stimulus that
reached China later on the long and dangerous road through the nomad regions
of Central Asia or by sea round Farther India, was far too weak to produce deep
results. The Chinese nation had to concentrate all its energies on external policy,
to keep off the nomads who thronged round its frontiers or to absorb them, and
finally to separate them and pacify them by a well-devised system of throwing out
agricultural colonies.
The men with whom the Chinese had to struggle were not migratory herdsmen
of Aryan language, but members of the short-headed race or the Mongolian stock,
as it is called after a victorious people which appeared late on the scene. The
earliest history of China records nothing as yet of struggles with nomads, but only
of the conquest of the forces of nature and at most of collisions with aborigines,
.who were at the early hunting stage. However incredible and indefinite in detail
these earliest traditions may be, yet the absence of all accounts of nomad invasions,
which subsequently were every-day occurrences and could hardly have been forgot-
ten in an artificial construction of history, is a very significant feature.
If, on the other hand, we reflect on the early appearance of Aryan and Semitic
migratory herdsmen in the west, the important fact results that nomadism, as an
economic form, migrated from west to east and was only adopted by the short-
headed tribes of Central Asia comparatively late. The knowledge of breeding
cattle and horses, and also, as Otto Schrader has proved, the use of the waggon,
existed among the Aryans earlier than among the Mongols and the tribes of the
Ural-Altai. The tribes that adopted nomadism were naturally not civilized peo-
ples like the Chinese or Babylonians. They formed part of the short-headed race,
and, in sterile regions, had not shared the advancement of the more favoured peo-
ples, but led a precarious existence on the steppes as hunters and gatherers of
natural products. That the inhabitants of Central Asia must have passed directly
from the hunter-stage to nomadism is a fact shown by tjie slight inclination to
136 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
agriculture which most of them show, and by the great importance of hunting,
and of collecting berries and roots for food, to the pastoral tribes of Central Asia.
Further in the north, where the breeding of cattle and horses is unremunerative,
many peoples to the present day have remained at the hunter-stage, others have
only later begun to tame the reindeer, and in this way made a peculiar sort of
nomadism possible, even in Northern Siberia. It cannot yet be shown whether
the nomads of Central Asia had a Bronze Age of a duration worth mentioning, or
whether they passed immediately from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The last
alternative is more probable in the case of most tribes of Central Asia, of course,
apart from the old Bronze-region in Southern Siberia and its adjoining districts.
2. CENTRAL ASIA AFTER THE RISE OF THE MONGOLIAN NOMADS
A. GENERAL REMARKS
(a) The Sources of our Information. — The difficulties which hinder any
survey of the history of other nations low down in the scale of civilization, are
felt when dealing with the inhabitants of Central Asia. We cannot rely on the
historical traditions of these peoples, but we must content ourselves mainly with
the accounts furnished by their civilized neighbours. It is true that the arts of
reading and writing gradually spread even in Central Asia ; in fact, independent
alphabets were invented among several races (see plate, p. 168). But this very
circumstance prevented literary monuments from spreading beyond narrow confines
and thus being preserved from oblivion. The remains of the historical literature
of Central Asia are, therefore, lamentably scanty. For the earlier period, they are
limited to a few inscribed tombstones and commemorative columns, such as the
sepulchral slabs of Orkthon, which are invaluable for the history of the Turks,
With these exceptions, we depend almost exclusively on the accounts given by
the neighbouring peoples on the east and west, the Chinese, and the inhabitants of
Western Asia and Greece. The Chinese accounts, since China was permanently
influenced by the affairs of Central Asia, are, owing to the dry and sober style of
their compilers, by far the most trustworthy and important ; for the earliest period
of the history of the Mongolian nomads they are, indeed, our only materials.
Unfortunately, the peculiarities of the Chinese language and writing make any
comparative investigation very difficult ; the ethnical and geographical names never
appear in their true forms, but are adapted to the nature of the Chinese language
and are, therefore, often marvellously disguised and distorted. The original form
can sometimes be ascertained by the help of other accounts or by philological
deductions ; often, however, these aids are insufficient, and there is no choice but
to accept the Chinese term.
The earliest Western account of the conditions of Central Asia was the " Ari-
maspeia " of Aristeas, which must have been written in the seventh century B. c.,
and was one of the chief authorities of Herodotus. This work, notwithstanding its
poetical dress, seems to be based on an actual journey, which the author made
along the old trade-route of Central Asia as far as the basin of the Tarim.
(b) The Relation of China to Nomadism — Another reason why we have only
Chinese accounts of the first movements of the nomads of Central Asia is found in
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 137
the fact that the disturbances, which arose after the growth and organisation of
warlike migratory tribes speaking a Mongolian-Turkish language and gradually
convulsed the greater part of Asia, must have made themselves painfully felt
in China first. The rich and accessible land of China attracted the swarms of
nomads like wasps to ripe fruit ; if it repelled the invaders, they turned to other
countries, and tribe after tribe continued to attack remote districts. But China
was for the nomads more than a goal for wild raids, it was also a school, in which
they first learnt the rudiments of political combination, and the advantage of
united action. We may venture to assert that, without the example of the organ-
ised giant empire of China, the nations of Central Asia would have remained much
longer, if not permanently, in a petty and disintegrated tribal system, prohibitory
of all great actions, and that they would not have attained that measure of civili-
zation which was requisite for the discharge of their part in the history of the
world. From the earliest times we see Chinese busily occupied in organising
the nomads; China was for the Mongols the model State, to which they owed
the possibility of organising and administering their vast world-empire. The
nomads, on their side, seem to have repaid these benefits, with base ingratitude, by
raids and attacks on the peaceful Middle Kingdom. We cannot reconcile our-
selves to the immeasurable havoc which they caused by the feeble consolation that
China with her congested population would only be benefited by the occasional
opening of a vein. But we may recall more fairly how often the Chinese people,
unprogressive and dulled by monotonous work, was stimulated into fresh life by
vigorous dynasties of nomadic races, and how respect for manly virtues, for cour-
age, loyalty, and justice was revived in the days of degeneracy by the influence of
the nomads.
These favourable aspects of the intercourse with her nomad neighbours were
at first, it must be admitted, only gradually and indirectly perceived by China.
There still remained the foremost duty of keeping the restless inhabitants of the
steppes away from the agricultural districts, and of adopting every method to
render them peaceful and harmless. The Chinese generals occasionally employed
unworthy means, such as poisoned arrows or poisoning the wells in the deserts, in
order to attain these objects, and treachery of every sort naturally abounded. But
these petty resorts cannot be compared with the great defensive and offensive
methods, by the help of which China was in the end victorious. No permanent
results could be achieved merely by repelling the foe with huge levies of ill-disci-
plined masses, or by the erection of great ramparts. The essential point was to
gain influence over the restless peoples of the steppes and to use it in various ways
for the advantage of China. We therefore find the Chinese statesmen always
anxious to place the power and the superior civilization of China before the eyes
of the rude nomads, to introduce new needs among them, to humanise their cus-
toms, and, finally, link their dynasties to China by bonds of marriage. This policy
succeeded so well that it gradually became the dearest ambition of a desert chief-
tain to possess a pompous Chinese title and a Chinese princess. It is true that
these marriage alliances occasionally furnished the nomad princes with a welcome
pretext for interfering in the dynastic feuds in China or aspiring themselves to
the royal dignity. On the whole, however, the system was advantageous to the
Middle Kingdom.
A second test of Chinese diplomacy was to pit the nomads against each other,
138 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
and to stir up fresh antagonists in the rear of an invader. This attempt was par-
tially the reason why China entered into relations with remote tribes, — a policy
which could not but promote indirectly the spread of Chinese civilization and com-
mercial intercourse. Another more dangerous way of fighting the nomads with
their own weapons was to settle small hordes in their own frontier provinces, and
to intrust to them the protection of the country against their nomad kinsmen.
Large numbers of the inhabitants of Central Asia were gradually civilized in this
fashion and absorbed. But often these frontier guardians allied themselves with
the invaders and became doubly dangerous from their knowledge of the country ;
or they strove for political power in the centre of the country. Several Chinese
dynasties arose from such hordes, and the feudal decay which so long jeopardised
the unity of China is largely due to this cause.
No permanent victory of Chinese civilization over nomadism was possible until
a defensive policy had been exchanged for an aggressive. An armed attack would
only be the prelude to the real and difficult work of civilization, for otherwise it
would only have a brief and transitory effect. The gigantic armies of the Chinese
simply disappeared in the desert, and the nomads, who were scattered before them,
soon reappeared on the frontiers of the empire, thirsting for booty. The state of
things was different when agriculturists appeared in the train of the army or, as
privileged immigrants, founded populous colonies and strong towns in suitable
positions and thus laid a solid foundation for the Chinese sovereignty.
This plan of sending out colonies was not prompted so much by the over-popu-
lation of China, which in earlier times was less marked than now, as by the wish
to gain political influence in the steppe. Penal settlements of criminals are
known to have existed at an early period, and prove that attempts were made to
carry out systematically the difficult task for which sufficient volunteers did not
come forward. As might be expected, the earliest and most successful settle-
ments were planted along the strip of oasis and the ancient trade-route on the
northern slope of the Kuen Lun. They were certainly encouraged from the wish
to secure trade and to enter into direct communication with the inhabitants of the
oasis in the basin of the Tarim. But commercial considerations did not constitute
the sole motives which led China, formerly so pacific, to advance to the Caspian
Sea. Here again we notice the prominent wish to check the restlessness of the
nomads by advancing the sphere of Chinese sovereignty to the farthest edge of
the steppe regions. Similar considerations have forced Russia in recent times to
advance from Siberia to Turkestan, and only to stop on the far side of the nomad
region, on the frontiers of Persia and Afghanistan. In this way alone has any
complete subjugation of the migratory hordes been possible.
(c) The Mixture of Nationalities in Central Asia. — In Central Asia itself
the growth of nomadism with its warlike propensities and its mobility greatly
favoured the mixture of nationalities. We find a proof of this in the language.
While in earlier times the Aryan language spread in the west under the influence
of nomad life, at a later period the Mongolian and Finnish-Ugrian group of
languages prevailed in Central Asia and far in the direction of Siberia and Europe.
The characteristics of the boundless plains, in which the nations combine and
blend like clouds of dust, are reflected in the facts of history. In the gorges of the,
few mountains a people may possibly preserve its individuality. But any nations
SSffitiSf] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 139
that have developed without disturbance for a time will at last inevitably be dis-
lodged, destroyed, and absorbed in another nationality, only to share with this in
its turn a similar fate. Small tribes carry others along with them, increase like an
avalanche, and finally give their name to an enormous nationality composed of
most heterogeneous elements. Peoples before whom the world trembled burst
like soap-bubbles, and disappear from the pages of history without leaving a trace
behind. The result is that the population of Central Asia becomes more and more
homogeneous from the point of view of language and ethnology, and that the
national names designate less and less distinct groups of humanity. New differ-
ences are only created by the degree of civilization and by the mixture with
other races on the edge of the steppe region of Central Asia. Such racial mix-
tures were naturally formed first where the Aryan nomads adjoined the Mongolian,
and where subsequently Iranian agriculturists gained a footing on the pasture lands
of Turkestan. The Aryan race lost much ground here from the point of view
of language, but from that of anthropology it exercised great influence on the
Mongolian peoples. The old dolichocephalic race is often mixed with the Mon-
golian in Siberia. On the other hand, the linguistic affinity of the Mongols with
the Tibetans and with the inhabitants of Further India has nothing to do with these
more recent occurrences, but may point to a very early connection, which cannot for
the moment be more accurately determined. A significant trace of this connection
is the name of heaven and the god of heaven (Chinese, tien, Bureyatic, tengri,
Altaic, tengere), which crops up as tangaroa on the islands of Polynesia, and was
clearly brought there by the Malayan wave of nations from Southern Asia.
B. THE HUNS
THE nation of Mongolian nomads, which first formed a constitutional unit,
and harassed Eastern Asia for many centuries, bore, according to Chinese author-
ities, the name of the Hiung nu. The similarity of the name with that of the
Huns, who later flooded Europe and heralded the great migration of nations (cf.
Vols. V and VI), has long been noticed, and Joseph de Guignes (1721-1800), the
first real student of the history of Central Asia (" Histoire ge'ne'rale des Huns, des
Turcs, des Mogols et des autres Tatares occidentaux," 1756-1758), had declared the
Huns to be kinsmen or descendants of the Hiung nu. It was left, however, for
Friedrich Hirth in recent times to corroborate this conjecture by convincing proofs.
We may therefore designate the old Hiung nu (Hiiin yiin, Hiiin yo) by the indis-
putably more correct name of Huns. They appear in the Indian epics as Huna, in
the Avesta as Hunavo, in Greek accounts as Funoi and Unoi. Linguistically the
nation was most akin to the later Turks.
The kingdom of the Huns was formed in the modern Mongolia, about 1200
B. c., apparently under the influence of a Chinese exile of high rank, who created
out of the scattered hordes the beginnings of constitutional unity on the model of
Ms own country. In the preceding century some of these hordes had made inroads
on China, but were unable to achieve great results. After the unification of the
Huns, and especially after the beginning of the Chau Tschau dynasty in China
•(1122 B. c.), which marks the commencement of the Chinese feudal system, the
danger became greater. The scantiness of our sources of information prevents us
from deciding whether any connection existed between the wars against the
140 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
nomads and the growth of the feudal system of partitioning the land. The
first ruler of the Chau dynasty, Wu wang, had still maintained friendly relations
with the Huns, who certainly feared the power of the empire which had gained
fresh strength under his government and tried to buy his good-will by presents.
As the imperial power decayed, the attacks were renewed with increased force.
Northern Shansi was laid waste in 910. Some decades later the Huns must have
been driven out from the heart of Shansi, where they had established themselves,
by an army under the personal command of the emperor. There was a recurrence
of similar events. There was apparently pasture land enough in China at that
time to attract the nomads to a long sojourn, just as afterwards small hordes of
nomads frequently settled in the interior of China.
About 700 B. c. the Huns advanced to Shantung ; in 650 B. c. they devastated
Pechili, and there was a succession of attacks on the country, disintegrated by
feudalism, and incapable of any combined resistance, until at last the ruler of the.
Chin Empire, under the name Shi Huang ti (246-210 B. c.), once more transformed
(hi 220 B. c.) China into a real united State, enormously increased his power by the
conquest of Southern China, and proceeded to take prompt and decided steps against
the nomads. A powerful army drove out the Huns from the country of Ordo within,
the northern bend of the Hoangho, which was an important position as the rendez-
vous for nomad invaders. The new possessions were protected by military colonies,
but China proper was defended against the attacks of predatory hordes by the
gigantic rampart of the " Great Wall." Portions of the Great Wall already existed
on the frontiers of some earlier feudal States. Shi Huang ti connected them so
as to form a continuous line of defence, which stretched from the shore of the
Yellow Sea to the port of Kansu, and, if it had been kept in repair and efficiently
defended, it would certainly have checked the inroads of the Huns. During the
first period it served its purpose to some extent. It was due to the Great Wall
that the attacks of the Huns were now directed against another quarter, and
remote regions of Asia indirectly felt the mighty shock. But the chaotic condi-
tion into which China relapsed immediately after the death of Shi Huang ti soon
stultified the object of the stupendous erection.
It was then that the power of the Huns was acquiring new strength under
vigorous leaders. The age of Shi Huang ti marks an era in Chinese historical
composition, since this emperor by the great burning of the books (p. 75) had
almost destroyed the ancient Chinese literature, so that only scanty and bald notices
of the period preceding him have come down. It is only after his reign that we
have more copious sources of information. Our first comparatively accurate
account of the constitution of the Huns dates from the period subsequent to the
death of Shi Huang ti. The eyes of the Chinese were then turned with anxious
attention to the increasing power of their nomad neighbours. The new growth of
the Hun Empire began under the rule of Mete (Maotun, Meghder ?) whose father,
H Tuman (Deuman), had already extended his power from Northern Mongolia to
Kansu. Mete, who would have been excluded from the legitimate succession,
murdered his father with the help of a devoted army, and was soon able to rean-
imate the old warlike spirit of his people. He found the territory of the Huns
shut in by powerful neighbours on two sides. On the east the Tunghu or Wu
hwan, Tungusian tribes, akin to the Koreans, had founded a powerful realm and
felt themselves so superior to the Huns that they took advantage of the usurpation
SSaJf] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 141
to claim a high price for their neutrality. On the southwest on the Altyn in Tagh
were settled the Yue tshi ( Jue-tchi), a nomad people of Tibetan stock, who were
the connecting link of the trade of China and the West, and were perhaps identical
with the old Issedones. The Tunghu, deceived by the apparent compliance of
Mete, were first attacked and dispersed (209 B. c.) ; they withdrew to the highlands
of modern Manchuria. A part of the Sieu-pe Tartars (Hsien pi, Tungusians), a
people living further to the east, who also suffered from the attacks of the Huns,
migrated to Korea and Japan.
On the east the sea fixed an impassable limit to further shiftings of the posi-
tion of nations ; but on the west, where the Huns now hurled themselves against
the Yue tshi, the movement had room to spread more widely. The Yue tshi first
retreated before the advance of their assailants only into more remote regions of
their own country, to the basin of the Tarirn (177 B. c.). After the death of Mete
(170) they attempted to recover their old territory, but suffered a second crushing
defeat from his successor, which produced a division of the nation (165 B. c.). The
smaller part found homes south of the Nanshan range ; but the bulk of the people,
the " Great Yue tshi," did not turn southward, but followed the natural trend of
the country westward. Driven out from the Tarim basin, they crossed the Tian-
shan mountains and sought refuge in the pasture lands on the confines of Europe
and Asia, the old arena of the Scythian nomads. On the Issik-kul they came
across a shepherd people of Iranian stock, the She, who were compelled to fly
before the overwhelming invasion into Ferghana.
Meanwhile the Huns had succeeded in conquering a part of Northwest China
and East Siberia. A policy was adopted with regard to the subjugation of nomad
tribes which was not unknown to other conquering nations of Central Asia, and
became the chief cause of the extraordinary intermixture of races among the Cen-
tral Asiatics. The vanquished tribes were not dislodged or made tributary, but to
some degree absorbed, since the women were distributed among the conquerors
and the young men enrolled in the army. In their life and customs the Huns
appear as a people who depended for their existence on cattle-breeding, hunting,
and to some extent agriculture, but gave the fullest play to their warlike propen-
sities. The place of honour was given to the young and efficient warriors, and old
age was despised. No one was reckoned to have reached full manhood until he
had slain at least one foe. The method of fighting which afterward decided the
battles of the Western Huns and Mongols — the charge of mounted archers, the
feigned flight, and the storm of arrows which laid low the unsuspecting pursuer —
was already developed among the ancient Huns, as well as the division of the
army into two wings. This military system was maintained in times of peace
also. The ruler, Shenyu, who to some degree commanded the centre, had two
supreme officials, the Tuchi (Duchi), under him, one of whom was over the eastern,
the other over the western, wing or division of the army and the country. The
trend from west to east in the geographical configuration of Asia is again recog-
nisable in this arrangement, which was also adopted by the later great nomad
empires. The Tuchi and a number of other high officials could only be chosen
from the kinsmen of the Shenyu, who with some few other families had the vir-
tual government of the empire in their hands.
After the death of Mete (170) the power of the Huns increased at first. The
Yue tshi were completely beaten, and the Usun, one of the fair-haired nomad
142 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
tribes of Central Asia, were driven from their homes in Kansu to the west, where,
following on the steps of the Yue tshi, they caused these latter to fly before them
from the Issik-kul farther southward. The sphere of the Mongolian language and
race was thus considerably extended by the Huns. The growing power of the
Hun empire was most dangerous to China, the frontiers of which were perpetually
ravaged, and seemed still more threatened, since the Tibetan nomads, who were
settled in the western mountains, now began to form alliances with the Huns, and
to undertake their raids on a mutual understanding. It was no use merely to repel
these attacks. If the Chinese wished to free themselves from their oppressors,
they were compelled to advance along the old road from Kansu to the Tarim
basin, take up strong positions there, separate the southern nomad countries from
the northern, and at the same time obtain possession of the indispensable bases and
halting-places of the Hun armies to the south of the desert of Gobi. In this way
the Western trade also, which had previously depended for its prosperity on the ca-
price of the nomads, was certain to come under the influence of China. The ener-
getic emperor Wu Ti (140-87) staked everything on the execution of this colossal
plan, entered into alliances with the Yue tshi and Usun, by this means threatening
the Huns in the rear, and finally forced them by successful engagements to retire
to the north of Mongolia (120). The first step in the advance westward was thus
taken, and a new era inaugurated in the foreign policy of China.
The Hun empire still maintained its position in the north for some time, and
even considerably extended its power toward the west, but the old sovereignty was
a thing of the past. The attacks of the neighbouring peoples and disputes for the
crown began to disorganise the constitution, until finally, about 50 B. c., the empire
broke up into a southern and a northern part, of which the first recognised the
Chinese suzerainty, while the northern still maintained its independence. Transi-
tory successes could no longer check the fall of the Hun power, for the Chinese
could now play off the southern Huns successfully against the northern Huns, and
instigate other nomad tribes against the northern empire, which was encircled by
enemies. The northern Hun empire finally, in 84 A. D., succumbed to the attacks,
in which even Siberian tribes, and especially the Sieii pe Tartars, formerly the
victims of the Huns, but now grown strong enough for a new conflict, took part.
Some of the Huns fled westward, where they were destined yet to attain great pros-
perity ; the rest were scattered or were absorbed in the Sien pe, who now possessed
the greater portion of Mongolia. The Southern Huns held out longer; at one time
as subjects and allies of the Chinese, at another as their opponents, or as supporters
of pretenders to the throne. But after 142 A. D. there was an end to the southern
empire of the Huns, though not to the influence of the people on the destinies of
China. The Huns, who had familiarised themselves witli the Chinese civilization,
gradually began to exert a political influence, and finally emperors of Him origin
for a time sat on the throne of the Celestial Empire, or on those of the fragments
into which it broke up. But they no longer ruled as nomad princes-; they had
become genuine Chinese in act and thought.
C. WESTERN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES
THE nomadic element in the west of Central Asia was of earlier origin than
that in the east, and large migrations of nomad peoples had taken place far earlier
2SS£!a] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 143
there than elsewhere. Some thousand years before the founding of the empire of
the Huns migratory tribes of Aryans had occupied Iran and India. But there the
movements met with a certain check. The Iranians did not succeed in penetrating
westward into the lowlands of Babylonia (cf. Vol. Ill) ; on the contrary, they saw
themselves restricted to their new home, and by the influence of the inhabitants
who had settled before them, as well as of the ancient civilization of the country
watered by Tigris and Euphrates, they were gradually brought over to a settled
life, without immediately losing the warlike virtues of their old pastoral existence.
The mixed Iranian people, which was formed from the Aryan immigrants and the
aboriginal population, thus became a bulwark of Western Asia against any further
inroads of nomads. The shock of invading hordes was checked by the resistance
of a people clinging more closely to the soil. The Iranians were not pushed
further toward Western Asia by vast bodies of men pressing after them, but the
great movement of the nations came to a stop. When the Medes and the Persians
obtained the sovereignty over the whole of Western Asia, they were already under
the spell of Western civilization, and were unable to give any Iranian character to
the newly conquered countries.
It thus follows that the Aryan nomads of Western Asia generally are hardly
spoken of for more than a thousand years. The Assyrio-Babylonian records know
nothing of them, and no news of them has reached the Chinese. There were no
doubt numerous battles and movements of nations, but these last were not on the
imposing scale of the migration to India and Iran. The arrival of brachycephalic
nomad tribes in Central Asia proper must gradually have made its influence felt,
with the effect that the Scythian hordes, which had been pushed far toward the
east, were partly absorbed, partly driven back to the west; these shocks con-
tinued, wave upon wave. The last consequence of the mightiest onslaught was
the invasion of Asia Minor by the Cimmerians about the year 700 B. c. These
were a nomad people of Thracian stock, who pastured their flocks north of the
Danube. After them pressed on the Scythians (Scolotee), who again were expelled
by the Sarmatians. The first cause of the movement may perhaps be considered
to be the westward advance of the Huns, who had long since founded an empire,
and clearly pressed on not only against China, but also toward the west. The Cim-
merians threatened Assyria from Asia Minor and Armenia, and by so doing came
into contact with the Medes, who were pressing on from the east (cf. Vol. Ill,
p. 132 ; Vol. IV, p. 52).
The period of more certain history, which begins with the founding of the
Medo-Persian Empire, shows us at once the settled Iranians at war with the
nomads. An incorrect idea, which is explained by the failure of the Greek histo-
rians to understand the conditions of Persia, and Eastern Persia in particular,
represents the Persians as the aggressors, who coveted the territory of the nomad
herdsmen. In reality the half mythical expedition of Cyrus against the Massagetre
(530), and the well-authenticated march of Darius against the Scythians (515),
were only attempts to attack the ever restless neighbours in their own country and
by this means to secure the frontiers. The expedition of Darius in particular was
probably based on the plan of attacking the nomad tribes by a sweeping flank
movement, and of thus preventing their retreat and finally subjugating them.
The Persian Empire was too short lived to complete so colossal an undertaking,
which would have required the dogged patience of the Chinese. The attempt of.
144 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
Darius, which effectively secured the lower line of the Danube for the Persians,
was not repeated. The Scythians, on the other hand, realised the weak points in
the Persian Empire, as is proved by their somewhat later plan (Vol. IV, p. 77) o/
attacking Persian territory by way of the Caucasian isthmus, for which they tried
to obtain the aid of the Spartans, who were intended to make a simultaneous,
invasion of Asia Minor.
The system of colonisation, which alone promised permanent results, seems to
have been prosecuted all the more vigorously from Eastern Iran, and the fact
that the majority of the nomads were of Iranian stock, like the Persians, facili-
tated the movement. It is probable that in quite early times on the Oxus and
Jaxartes, that is to say, in Bactria and Sogdiana, States possessing an Iranian
civilization were developed, which were afterward politically united with Persia,
although they can hardly have remained in permanent and complete dependence.
By the expedition of Alexander the Great (327) they were more closely united with
the new world empire of that monarch, and the foundation was laid for a Grseco-
Iranian civilized State, the Bactriau Empire, which was developed in the Seleucid
period (250 B.C.) and showed a considerable vitality (cf. Vol. IV, p. 157). This
empire, like the ancient Iranian Bactria, was a bulwark against the onset of the
nomads. It showed itself a match for the migratoiy Iranian tribes, and it was
only the impact of a non- Aryan shepherd people from Central Asia that for the
first time shook once more the strong rampart which guarded Western Asia and
India. This new tide of nations, which set in about 160 B.C., was certainly, even
if indirectly, due to the Huns.
The nomad tribe of the Usun had abandoned its home on the borders of China
and had retreated westward away from the sphere of the power of the Huns
{cf. above). Since it followed the roads which led away along the Tianshau and
finally crossed that range, it reached the Issik-Kul, where the Yue tshi, their
predecessors on the same path, had won homes for themselves. These latter were
now compelled to give way ; but they did not again turn westward, where warlike
Scythian tribes barred the way, but southward against the Bactrian Empire, the
internal disruption of which would have been well known to them as neighbours.
The result was that Northern Bactria, the country on the Oxus and Jaxartes, fell
easily into their hands, while the rest of the Greek State south of the Hindu Kush
maintained its position for the time. The Parthian kingdom, which successfully
undertook the defence of the frontiers against the nomads, had grown up since
250 B. c. in Western and Central Iran (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 274). But if Iran was
closed to the Yue tshi, they did not allow the road to India, which from all time
had possessed a magic attraction for every conquering people, to be permanently
blocked. The southern part of the Bactrian Empire stood for some hundred
years more. Then, about 25 B. c., Kozulo Kadphises (Kieu Tsieu Kio ; cf. Vol. IV,
p. 160), who had reunited the Yue tshi after their division into five clans, subdued
the modern Afghanistan. This immediately opened the road to the Indian posses-
sions of the Bactrian Empire. About the year 10 A. D. his successor, Huemo
Kadphises, or Kadaphes, advanced into Northwestern India, and thus laid the
foundation of the Indo-Scythian Empire. The Yue tshi now appear in history as
Indo-Scythians. They have frequently been confused at a later date with the
"White Huns," or Ephtalites, with whom they are absolutely unconnected. Unde-
niably the fact that Bactria as far as the borders of Central Asia was then united
CentrrtJ A sin
and Siberia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 145
with large portions of India under one rule, did much to make Indian influence,
especially the Buddhism then flourishing in India, felt far away northward. India
generally entered into closer and more direct relations with Central Asia. Fifty
years after the founding of the Indo-Scythian Empire the Buddhist propaganda had
already reached China. The empire of the Yue tshi showed a stubborn vitality,
and only broke up in the year 579 A. D.
D. THE TAEIM BASIN (EAST TUEKESTAN)
(a) The Tarim Basin and the Trade from West to East. — While a large
part of Central Asia first acquires importance for the history and culture of man-
kind, on the appearance of nomad peoples, and as the fountain-head of a disin-
tegrating force, the Tarim basin, which is also called East Turkestan or High
Tartary, claims the attention of the historian far earlier and in another sense,
By far the greater part of the plain lying between the Tianshan, the Pamirs, and
the Kuen Lun is emphatically a region of steppe and desert. But the mountain
streams, the largest of which unite in the river Tarim and the Lob-nor, create
a series of fertile oases, which support a considerable permanent population, and
form a chain of trading posts along the foot of the mountains. In all proba-
bility the oases were more numerous in early times, and the intermediate barren
stretches less desolate. The Tarim basin could thus form in ancient days the
bridge between the civilization of Eastern and Western Asia, even if it was not an
international highway, and saw at the same time a higher civilization develop in
its fertile regions. The key to many problems of the prehistoric period lies under
the burning sands of Eastern Turkestan.
The ancient trade communications through the Tarim basin are certainly to
be regarded as a relic of the former connection with civilization, which was main-
tained notwithstanding the increasing poverty of the soil and the appearance of
barbarous nomad tribes. Those who wish to see in the nomads, with their rest-
less mobility, the first promoters of trade, forget that these tribes never showed
a pronounced predilection for it, although from the example of others they fre-
quently recognised the profits derivable from a transit trade, and familiarised
themselves with it. The nomad as such is not inclined to amass the heavy
goods which the town merchant stores in his vaults. His chief wealth lies in
his flocks and herds, which again depend for their numbers on the possession
of the requisite pasture land. Even in the Tarim basin the real traders were thus
always to be found among the settled inhabitants of the oases, although the secu-
rity and success of their commerce depended on the good-will of the nomads, and
although sometimes closed trade routes were reopened by the great migrations and
conquests of nomads, and districts which had long been estranged were once more
united (cf. the empire of the Yue tshi).
The earliest recorded trade which passed through the Tarim basin and brought
Eastern and Western Asia into some sort of communication was the silk trade.
The breeding of silkworms, if Chinese tradition does not err, was practised by that
people from very ancient times ; the wife of the emperor Huang Ti was renowned
as a keen promoter of this industry. The Chinese themselves seem to have
attached no especial importance to the silk trade with the West, as is shown by
the silence of the ancient accounts. The trade accordingly must have been chiefly
VOL. II — 10
146 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
•conducted by foreigners, who were eager to obtain in exchange the highly valued
•'product of China, while it was long a matter of indifference to the Chinese, who
"were aware that they could very well dispense with the goods received in return.
The imagination of the West was all the more excited by the mysterious Eastern
• laud, which produced the costly silk, and attempts to gain further information were
made from early times. Herodotus was able to refer to a book of travels, which
did not indeed throw light on China itself, but only on the route of the silk trade
and the condition of things in the valley of the Tarim ; this was the " Arimaspeia"
of Aristeas, which appeared in the seventh century A. D., soon after the Cimmerian
'expedition (cf. ante, pp. 137 and 143). This narrative, notwithstanding its romantic
-dress, was probably based on actual explorations and travels, as Wilhelm Toma-
• schek has been at pains to show. The Issedones, whom Aristeas professes to have
reached, were an actual people, and their homes probably lay in the Tarim basin.
•The western neighbours of the Issedones were the Massagetse, that is, the Iranian
nomads who pastured their herds in Western Turkestan. The name of the Isse-
dones may be of Iranian origin, and have been given to the people, who styled
themselves otherwise, by the merchants, who were mainly Iranians. We thus see
why Chinese records do not mention the name. The Issedones were probably a
branch of the Tibetan stock, which once spread further northward than now.
They are possibly identical with, or at least allied to, the later Yue tshi, who were
expelled by the Huns from their homes in the Tarim basin. But the population
of that region can hardly have been homogeneous at the time of Aristeas. The
Tibetan Issedones, who are occasionally called Scythians, were far more probably
a nomad people, who exercised sovereignty over the country of the oases ; but the
remnants of the representatives of an earlier civilization may well have settled in
these oases, precisely as in modern times the towns of Eastern Turkestan are in-
habited by a very mixed population. Dolichocephalic Iranians, who came into the
country as traders or immigrated as agriculturists, may well have mixed here in
early times with the permanently settled brachycephalic inhabitants and with
the tribes of the Tibetan nomads.
The Arimaspes, a warlike tribe of nomads, which seems to have made frequent
inroads into the Tarim basin, are mentioned by Aristeas as northern neighbours of
the Issedones. By this title he undoubtedly means the Huns, whom we have
' already seen as invaders of China. In the second century B. c. they also funda-
mentally altered the conditions of Eastern Turkestan by driving the Yue tshi
• westward. The settled population of the oases probably was little influenced by
• these movements. Aristeas gives noteworthy accounts of the battles of the Ari-
maspes with the " griffins," the guardians of the gold, who lived to the north of
them. These "griffins " are certainly the nations on the Altai, the representatives
of the old bronze culture of Southern Siberia, and the builders of those tombs in
which great quantities of gold ornaments have recently been found. Thus the
picture of the activity of the warlike nation of the ancient Huns, that leaven of
the nomad peoples, is complete on every side. On the east the indefatigable sons
of the desert continually advanced against the rich plains of China ; on the south
they directed their raids against the representatives of the transit trade of Central
Asia, the Tibetan nomads, and the inhabitants of the oases in the Tarim basin';
and on the north they harassed the industrious tribes of the Altai with their
.expeditions. The great Hun campaign, which finally convulsed Europe to its
' HISTORY OF THE WORLD 147
' foundations (Vol. V), was only a gigantic continuation of these earlier struggles
r for power and booty. While Aristeas has exhaustively described the Issedones
, and Arimaspes, he appears to confound the Chinese with the Hyperboreans, the
peaceful people on the uttermost border of the world ; at any rate, his account
of the Hyperboreans as reported by Herodotus almost coincides with the later
•descriptions of the Seres (cf. p. 57).
The towns and trading settlements in the Tarim basin, which Aristeas mentions,
•can partially be identified with still existing modern localities. This is impossible
in the case of many, as may be concluded from the great number of towns buried
beneath the sand, which have been recently explored by Sven Hedin. Further aids
toward identification are supplied by the accounts of the Macedonian merchant
Maes, or Titianus, who enables us to fix the stations on the East Asiatic trade route
in the first century A. D. This road led from Samarkand to Ferghana, whence the
•" Stone Tower " and the valley of the Kisil Su were reached, at the entrance of
which an important trading town lay in the territory of Kasia. This was cer-
tainly the modern Kashgar, for which natural advantages of situation have secured
uninterruptedly since ancient times a foremost position among the cities of the
Tarim basin. The " Scythian Issedon " may be represented by the modern Kuchar,
the most important mart of the Turkish tribes settled to the north in the Tian-
shan ; Asmira may be the present Hami. The first Chinese trading-town in the
district of Kansu which was reached by the caravans coming from the west,
the modern Su chau, is, according to Tomaschek's belief, to be rediscovered in the
ancient Drosache. The larger centres of trade, from a political point of view, en-
joyed certainly some share of independence, although they did not venture on any
very stringent measures against the nomads from fear of interruption to commerce.
The different vicissitudes in the relations of the nomads to the dwellers in the
country and the towns will have been repeated on a small scale in the Tarim
basin ; at one time brute force, at another the refinements of civilization, gained the
day. The connection with India, the beginnings of which are obscure, was of
great importance to this civilization. In this way Eastern Turkestan became the
bridge on which Indian manners and customs, and above all Indian religion, passed
both to China and the rest of Central Asia, in order, in course of time, to work great
revolutions in the character and habits of the Central Asiatic peoples.
(6) The Changes in Commercial Intercourse. — The trade which moved on the
long commercial highway of Central Asia, a road unparalleled for its length and
difficulties, could not always be prosecuted with unvarying uniformity. External
influences and internal commotions produced the inevitable result that the traffic
became brisker at one time, and at another flagged or almost died away, and that
the character of the trade altered. In fact, so far as we can survey the conditions
generally, we see continual changes occurring. The routes along which the main
bulk of trade passes are changed, the customs of commerce are altered, and finally
even the wares, which east and west exchange, are not always the same, but new
ones are added to the old.
It 'is quite in accordance with the nature of commercial intercourse that it
always seeks out paths for itself along the line of least resistance. This resistance,
the effect of which is shown in the risks and costs of transport, and therefore
admits of being roughly calculated, appears in the form of natural obstacles or
148 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
human opposition. The two are reciprocally connected. A somewhat difficult and
laborious route is preferred to the best road, if this involves risk and cost from
repeated robberies, exorbitant tolls, and other vexatious imposts. In Central Asia,
. where on the one hand different routes were available for the trade between Eastern
and Western Asia, and on the other hand the nomads were always ready to plunder
the merchants directly by brigandage or indirectly by tolls, commerce clearly
changed its roads more frequently than the extant accounts give us to understand.
The supremacy of the Huns in the north doubtless largely contributed toward the
result that the northern routes were deserted and the traffic restricted to the roads
in the Tarim basin. The wars of the Arimaspes with the Issedones may well have
partially had the object of securing to the former the monopoly of trade. After
the expulsion of the Yue tshi, who possibly are to be identified with the Issedones,
the Huns had the northern highway through the Tarim basin in their power, while
in the south Tibetan nomads, the Khiang, commanded the roads. It appears from
the account furnished in the year 122 B.C. by Chang kien to his emperor Wu Ti,
after an inquiry into the roads leading to the west and the possibilities of trade,
that traffic then went quite in the south through Szechwan and Tsaidam to the
southern border of the Tarim basin, while in the north the Huns and in the centre
the Khiang barred the roads. These unfavourable conditions largely contributed
to the result that the Chinese abandoned their former policy of indifference toward
the peoples of the steppe.
The opening up of new connections on quite different routes between China
and the other civilized countries must have exercised a more important and unfa-
vourable influence on the traffic of Central Asia. No success, it is true, attended
the attempts to come into direct communication with India through Tibet, and thus
obviate the necessity of bringing Indian goods by a detour through the Tarim basin,
although the emperor Wu Ti made various efforts with this object, and a small
transit trade from India to Tibet must have been in existence long before his
time. Maritime trade flourished all the more at a later time, when the distance
between the Chinese and Indian ports had been immensely lessened by the con-
quest of Southern China. It is significant that the real impetus to maritime com-
merce was not given until the second century A. D., when the Chinese had again
lost the command of the highways of Central Asia.
There must also have been changes in the customs of trade. Over vast dis-
tances trade can be prosecuted in two ways: either one tribe hands on the goods
to another by a system of frontier trade, until they finally reach their farthest
destination after various exchanges, or the members of one or more peoples adopt
the carrying trade as a profession and traverse the whole distance with their wares.
It is of course conceivable that for part of the distance caravan trade was usual,
and for the other transit trade. On the Central Asiatic routes both methods may
have been popular, according to circumstances. The transit trade is, however, cer-
tainly older than the caravan system on a large scale. Whether it actually in
places, as early western accounts report, took the simple form of " dumb trade,"
or whether customs had been ascribed to the half mythical Seres, which were
observed elsewhere in intercourse with primitive nations, can no longer be ascer-
tained. It is in accordance with the whole attitude of China to the outer world
that the Chinese did not engage until late in the carrying trade, while on the con-
trary the merchants of Iranian stock were continually exerting themselves to obtain
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 149
the caravan trade over the whole distance. The opponents of the direct traffic
between east and west were naturally the nomads, above all the Huns, who pre-
ferred to make the roads a desert rather than to lose the high profits obtainable
from the transit trade. The laboriousness and insecurity of the traffic produced
the result that large emporiums grew up in different places, which served also as
markets for the surrounding tribes ; such were Samarkand in Western and Kashgar
in Eastern Turkestan.
The changes in traffic, which affect the goods themselves, are most marked.
The products of Central Asia itself, jade, rhubarb, musk, and gold, were exported as
objects of trade to China, as well as to the West and to India. But on the whole
it was the demand of the Western nations for Chinese commodities that kept the
traffic alive in earlier days. In this connection many changes took place in the ex-
ports of China, as well as in the goods which the West had to offer in exchange.
The most important and most prized product which China supplied was un-
questionably silk. The ancient authorities of the West designate the Chinese by
the name of Seres, the silk growers. It is difficult to fix the date when this trade
in silk and silken materials began. Aristeas, strangely, seems not to mention it,
but since Wilhelm Gesenius has pointed out that some passages of the Bible be-
longing to the sixth century B. c. (Ezekiel xvi, 10, 13 and Isaiah xlix, 12) refer
to silken materials and the Chinese nation, no weight need be attached to that cir-
cumstance. The mere existence of a flourishing trade with China could hardly be
explained unless some such potent attraction as silk had been present in the
Far East. A large part of the silks seem to have gone to Phoenicia, where they
were dyed brighter colours or were unravelled and rewoven into half-silk fabrics,
in order once more to be put on the market. The export of silk from China must
inevitably have received a considerable blow so soon as the attempt to rear silk-
worms in other countries succeeded, and such a contingency could not long be
avoided. As a fact, the silk industry gradually spread along the line of the old
trade route. The advance of the Chinese toward the west introduced in 140 B.C.
the culture of mulberry-trees and silkworms into Turkestan, after which that coun-
try gradually became an important centre for the export of silk. The Persians,
also, were acquainted with the new industry ; indeed for a time Persia, which both
produced silk and commanded the routes to China, had the silk trade almost
entirely in her hands. It was only in the year 557 that the Byzantines succeeded
in introducing the eggs of the silkworms and thus breaking down the Persian
monopoly. This naturally caused a fresh and important diminution in the export
of silk from China, and it was only much later, when European powers began to
foster the maritime trade with China, and thus the cheaper freight by sea influ-
enced the prices, that it became once more possible for Chinese silk to compete
with that of the Nearer East.
A second group of products which were sent from China to the West were
lacquers and varnishes. Certain kinds of lacquer from Eastern Asia even at the
present day are highly esteemed, and the trade in them may well have been pro-
fitable in ancient times. Probably articles of lacquered wood, such as are now
sent in endless numbers from Japan, were early exported.
The case is quite different with the two articles which subsequently became of
the first importance to the trade of China, and to some degree took the place of the
then less prized silk, namely, porcelain and tea. Porcelain, even if previously dis-
150 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n\
covered, was not produced in any considerable quantity by the Chinese before the-
seventh century A. D., although pottery was known to them from earliest times.
Tea did not become an important article in China itself before the fourth century
A. D., and it was long before it was appreciated in foreign countries, and became for
the nomads of Central Asia in particular so indispensable, that the demand for it
tended to make the unruliest tribes dependent on China.
While China at all periods was able to supply goods which were eagerly sought
for by the Western nations, there was always the great question to be solved,
what could be offered in exchange to China and to India, which were both amply
supplied with all that they needed. India and China either did not require the
goods which European and Western Asiatic traders supplied, or only required them
in small quantities ; the deficit had, therefore, to be made up by the precious,
metals, the only product prized by the civilized nations of the East. The result
was that gold and silver flowed into India and Eastern Asia to an alarming extent,
and thus the requisite medium of circulation was withdrawn from Western trade.
The elder Pliny calculated the annual loss which the world-empire of Home sus-
tained from this cause at £1,000,000 sterling, more than half of which was con-
sumed by India.
The West could not permanently pay for the imports from the East with the
yield of her mines, but only with the products of a superior civilization and indus-
trial activity. In this connection it is a significant fact, as well as a proof of the
extreme antiquity of barter, that the ancient industries of Phoenicia and Syria pre-
pared articles for export to Eastern Asia. Among the imports to China the first
place was taken by cloth stuffs ; but it was not the art of weaving, with which the
Chinese also were very familiar, that made the stuffs highly valued, and prevented
even the cost of the long transport appearing excessive, so much as the dyeing.
An attempt, as might be expected, was early made to put on the Eastern market
the Phoenician purple stuffs, which were renowned and prized throughout the-
West. In addition to the dyed stuffs, there was an article still more valued for
centuries, which was produced to greatest perfection in Syrian manufactories,
namely, glass. According to Chinese accounts glass was valued in the East as
much as precious stones, and fetched a correspondingly high price, as long as the
art of making glass was unknown. But just as the silk trade on the highway of
Central Asia suffered a severe blow by the transference of the cultivation of silk-
worms to Persia and the Eastern Eoman Empire, so the importation of glass to
China dwindled away when, with the article itself, the secret of its production
finally spread to the East. This happened in the fifth century A. D., about one
hundred years before the silk industry was known in Byzantium.
The above-mentioned wares were not, of course, the only staple of Central
Asiatic commerce. China sometimes supplied great quantities of iron ware, as
Well as skins, which reached China through the Siberian trade, or were given as
tribute by nomad tribes, while the West imported spices, jewels, etc. Besides this,
the stream of Indian trade blended with that of the West and East in the Tarim
basin. But these goods could not prevent the trade from languishing so soon as-
the demand for the chief products diminished or entirely disappeared.
(c) The Chinese as Conquerors in the Basin of the Tarim. — China, as we have
seen, originally had little need for commerce with the outer world. Foreigners'
fl] HISTORY OF THE WORLD .151
came to the Middle Kingdom in order to purchase the valued Chinese wares, but
the Chinese themselves were quite satisfied to take in exchange all kinds of for-
eign products, with which they could easily dispense in case of need. The state
of affairs could not permanently remain so favourable for China. The constant
large exportations inevitably led to the growth of a sort of export industry ; that is
to say, silk, lacquer, etc., were produced in greater quantities than the home Chinese
market required. If the export trade suddenly stopped, the consequences to China
were serious. Besides this, China became gradually accustomed to certain foreign
commodities, with which it could not dispense, especially to the spices, drugs, etc.,
of India and Arabia. Thus any dislocation of trade was severely felt. Such a
result ensued when the Huns overthrew the Yue tshi and barred the valley of the
Tarim, while uncivilized Tibetan hordes rendered the roads dangerous in the
south. It was an intolerable situation that the Huns should be able to cut off
trade communications entirely, or to cripple them by excessive tolls, and the
Chinese were inevitably driven to reprisals so soon as an energetic ruler governed
them.
Other considerations prompted an advance into the basin of the Tarim. It was
recognised in China that the menacing growth of the power of the nomads could
not be checked unless they took up a strong position in their rear, and divided the"
steppe region into two sections by a strongly fortified military road. Even in this
case the old trade route through the Tarim basin suggested itself as the natural
line of direction for the advance, while the trading towns naturally formed suit-
able bases of operations.
The emperor Wu Ti about 125 B. c. tried, therefore, to reopen the trade route of
Central Asia, and at the same time to crush the enormously increased power of the
Hims. An effort was made to gain for this object the alliance of the hereditary
enemies of the Huns, the Yue tshi, who had just conquered Northern Bactria and
Sogdiana, and thus were masters of the western extremity of the Tarim roads.
Wu Ti sent to them his general, Chang kien ; but being taken prisoner on the
way by the Huns, he did not reach the Yue tshi until ten years later, and returned,
to China after an absence of thirteen years. He had been unable to accomplish
his chief object of concluding an alliance with the Yue tshi and arranging a comf
bined attack on the Huns, since the successes of the Yue tshi in Bactria had given,
a new, and for China an unfavourable, turn to the future policy of that people. In
compensation he brought back to China a store of information about the western
countries and India. The consequent attempts of Wu Ti to establish communi--
eations with India through Tibet were a failure. On the other hand, the war
against the Huns was now vigorously prosecuted, and the old trade road was
intentionally made the base of operations. The Yu-men Pass was occupied and
secured by military colonies, while the power of the Huns was weakened by
repeated blows and ousted from the Tarim basin. Trade revived, but with the,
difference that now even Chinese caravans and embassies went westward and
there formed political connections, especially with the people of the An hsi (Ansi);
by whom, according to Friedrich Hirth, we are to understand the Parthians. • The:
most easterly point of the Parthian Empire appears then to have been Margiana
(Merv, the Mu lu of Chinese accounts). The Chinese, therefore, certainly,
advanced so far.
Many petty States of the Tarim basin and possibly of the countries lying
152 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
farther to the west entered into closer political union with' the east, and partially
recognised the suzerainty of China. It was not, however, before the year 108 B. c.
that the immediate possessions of China were extended to the Lob nor, that is to
say, to the eastern boundary of the basin of the Tarim and secured by fortifica-
tions. Chinese troops later advanced to Kashgar (101 B. c.). But the dominion of
China in the Tarim basin was never firmly established, although alliances were
frequently concluded with the Usun against the Huns. The power of the latter
was still too strong to allow the petty States of Eastern Turkestan and the Uigu-
rians any permanent connection with China. The influence of the Huns on the
valley of the Tarim and the Western trade rose or fell according to their successes
or reverses in their struggle with China.
But the other nomad tribes of Central Asia also interfered in the affairs of those
parts. The childless sovereign of the small kingdom of Yarkand (Shao Che) had
destined a son of the king of the Usun to succeed him. The inhabitants of Yar-
kand, after the death of their monarch, with the consent of the Chinese emperor
Hsuan Ti, summoned this prince from China, where he was being educated, and
placed him on the throne, thus hoping to secure for themselves the protection of
the Usun and of the Chinese (64 B. c.). But the brother of the late king, with the
help of the Huns, deposed the new sovereign, who, rightly or not, was accused of
cruel tyranny, and put him to death. A Chinese army then appeared, killed the
usurper in his turn, and placed on the throne a new monarch, approved by China,
who appears also to have asserted his power. The influence of China in the Tarim
valley gradually diminished. At the beginning of the first century A. D. the power
of Yarkand grew so strong that its king claimed the suzerainty of the entire basin
of the Tarim, after his request to be recognised by China as governor of Eastern
Turkestan had been refused (33 A. D.). The prayers of the other oppressed minor
States and the commercial blockade maintained by the king of Yarkand ought to
have forced Shi Tsu to take vigorous action. The war with Yarkand, however, was
mainly left to the Huns, who harassed the new kingdom in the Tarim basin for
decades with varying success.
The second great advance of the Chinese toward the west did not begin until
72 A. D. The wish to open up communications with the West was stimulated then
by the introduction of the Buddhist teaching, which had entered China through
the Tarim basin. A deputation which Ming Ti, the second emperor of the later or
Eastern Han dynasty, had himself sent to the Yue tshi had returned in 65 A. D.,
and brought back detailed information about Buddhism. The emperor in conse-
quence was induced to erect a statue of Buddha in his capital, and to show pecu-
liar favour to the new doctrine, without, however, giving it preference over the
doctrines of Kung fu tse. The chief cause, however, of the renewed advance
westward was doubtless the circumstance that the South Huns had once more
combined with the North Huns to block the traffic, and had completely dis-
organised the otherwise unsatisfactory conditions existing in the Tarim basin.
Various Chinese armies marched against the Huns in the year 72, one of which,
tinder the command of the general Pan Chau, followed the old trade route to the
Tarim basin. The appearance of this renowned commander and diplomatist imme-
diately secured the victory of Chinese influence among the petty States, which had
all suffered under the insecurity of trade and the prevailing military policy of
the Huns.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 153
This time the Chinese were not content with the easily acquired spoil. They had
heard, meanwhile, that a mighty empire of Ta ts'in, the Roman world-empire, lay in
the west. The remarkable magnetic force exercised on each other by great States,
which lies at the root of their conditions of existence and compels them gradually
to absorb all petty intervening States and to form a well-defined frontier, began to
assert its power here, although its complete triumph was prevented by the immen-
sity of the distance to be traversed. The Chinese never obtained accurate know-
ledge of the Roman Empire. Friedrich Hirth has shown that they probably were
partially acquainted with the eastern half only, and thought that Antiochia was
the capital of the empire. The name Fu lin for the Koman Empire, which subse-
quently occurs, seems to be derived from Bethlehem, and thus merely to point to
the Christian faith of the later Romans. The campaign of Pan Chau, which took
Mm nearly to the confines of Roman influence, dates some decades after the con-
quest of the Tarim basin. Pan Chau crossed the range of mountains to the west,
traversed the territory of the Yue tshi, and finally reached the Caspian Sea, whence
he sent explorers further to the west in order to prepare for an attack on the Roman
Empire (102). The unfavourable report, however, which he received and his
advanced age forced him to return to China, where he died shortly after.
The political importance of his conquest was considerable, but could hardly be
lasting. The numerous petty States, which at the sight of his army had sought
the protection of China, had no choice but to go their own way, and to make terms
with their other powerful neighbours, now that China ceased to lend them any
effective assistance. The revenue from tribute, gifts, and tolls which China drew
from the western countries was far from being sufficient to cover the great out-
goings. And the traditional Chinese policy, which would hear nothing of any
expansion of the old boundaries and attached little importance to the promotion of
trade, now reasserted itself. There was, as early as 120 A. D., a feeling in favour
of abandoning all possessions beyond the Yu-men Pass, and it was due to the advice
•of a son of Pan Chau that the military road, at least as far as the Tarim basin, was
retained. The long series of disorders which soon afterward broke out in China
completely checked any vigorous foreign policy, while the growing prosperity of
maritime commerce diminished the importance of the overland trade. The petty
States in the Tarim basin for many years subsequently led a quiet existence, more
influenced by India than by China.
E. THE WESTERN HUNS
THE advance of the Chinese toward the west, in spite of the bold plan of
Pan Chau to attack the Roman Empire, inflicted no injury upon civilization, but
on the whole was beneficial to it. Far more momentous was the turn of events
when the nomad hordes of Central Asia sought an outlet in Western Asia and
Europe. Northern India had already fallen into the hands of the Yue tshi, and
the hour was approaching when a great part of Europe also would tremble beneath
the scourge of the yellow races of the steppes. The main body of the Huns, when
their star had set in Mongolia, hurled themselves against the civilized nations of
the west. The consequences which the onslaught of the Huns and, in close con-
nection with it, the advance of other Asiatic nomads had for Europe do not come
into the history of Central Asia (see Vol. V) ; but, aided by the researches of
154 HISTORY OF THE .WORLD cvUpfcr n
Hirfh, it is .worth" our while to glance at the development of Asiatic affairs up to
the invasion of the Huns.
; The western civilized world had long escaped any dangerous attacks from the
nomad peoples of Asia and Europe, perhaps because .the nomads of East Europe
became gradually more settled and paid more attention to agriculture. The Alani,
who are identical with the Aorsi of earlier accounts, seem to have been the most:
influential nation. Probably it is no question of a closely connected nationality, but
rather of a collective name for the nomad tribes, who occupied the region from the
Black Sea to the Sea of Aral, and were composed partly of the remains of Irano-
Scythiaus, partly of Ural-Altaians. The proper bearers of the name were settled
in the first century B. c. to the north of the Caucasus, where they fought against
Pompey in the year 65 B. c., but then spread themselves further over the steppe, and;
appear to have ruled for a time at least over most of the nomad tribes of the region
of Pontus and the Caspian. There were frequent but unimportant contests with
the Eomans. According to Chinese records a part of the country of the Alani
(Ants'ai) belonged for a time to Sogdiana, a fact which argues armed complica-
tions on that frontier. Attacks through the Caucasian gate on Persian and Roman
territory occurred several times, but there was no immense migration until the
advance of the Western Huns.
The first march of Hun nomads toward the west took place about the mid-
dle of the first century B. c., when the empire of the Huns was thrown into the
most violent confusion by internal seditious. Several rulers tried simultaneously
to usurp the power, and waged bitter war on each other. When at last one of the
pretenders, Huhanye*, appeared to be victorious, his own brother, the " Viceroy of
the East," rose against him. This " Chichi," as he now called himself, expelled his
brother from the capital, but then turned to the west, and, since he could not hold
the whole empire, founded an independent power, which he gradually extended
further westward. The circumstance that a prince in Sogdiana called in his help
against the Usun enabled him to transfer the seat of his power to the region o£
the Sea of Aral. Part of the Alani in that district were perhaps already subject
to the Huns. The wars with the Chinese in the Tarim basin ended with the death
of Chichi (36 B.C.), and greatly weakened the power of the Huns.
Their power did not revive until, in the year 90 A. D., another Hun prince with a
large part of his people marched westward and joined the earlier emigrants. This
migration was due to the complete collapse of the empire of the Eastern Huns.
Hirth rightly points out that in both the migrations of the Huns it was the most
warlike and strongest part of the population which turned westward. The West
Huns, therefbre,~were the picked men of their traditionally war-loving and adven-
turous race. Their people can hardly have remained unmixed during its migra-
ti'ins, but it probably incorporated the bravest men from the conquered tribes. In
this way a 'new nationality might well be developed, whose thirst for war woidd
prove fateful for even distant regions, so soon as an occasion should arise when this
concentrated energy could find an outlet.
The Chinese, after the advantages gained in the west by the advance of Pan
Chau had been mostly relinquished, had at the beginning of the second century A. D;
to face new contests with the Huns and their Uigurian allies in the Tarim basin.
After the middle of the century the West Huns disappear from the horizon of the
Chinese,, a fact whjch suggests that the warlike nomads, finally renouncing any
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
plans for the reconquest of their old homes in Mongolia, turned their attention in
other directions. For two centuries more they seem to have been content with
minor hostilities, until at last in 350 A. D. the avalanche began to roll. The Huns
attacked the Alani first, killed their king and partly brought the people under their
power, partly forced them in panic further to the west. The great steppe of Eastern
Europe and Siberia was thus opened to the Huns and the direction of their further
advance suggested. That the storm of conquest did not sweep down on Persia, the
fertile plains of which certainly aroused the greed of the marauders, was due to the
awe with which the still powerful Neo-Persian empire of the Sassanids inspired
the nomads (Vol. Ill, p. 284).
The appearance of the Huns would not have had nearly so great an influence
on Europe had it not been that the Eoman Empire was already beginning to decay
and that the Germanic races were in confusion and disorder. The convulsions
which shook Europe, when the Huns under the leadership of Balamir in 375
invaded the Danubian countries, do not concern the history of Asia (cf. Vol. V).
It is unlikely that all the Huns and Alani took part in the movement toward the
west ; on the contrary, the supremacy of the Huns was still maintained in the region
of Pontus and the Caspian. For when, after the death of Attila (453), the European
empire of the Huns broke up, the rest of the people withdrew once more to the
east, and found a refuge there in the old homes of the Huns and Alani. The
sovereignty of those regions devolved on Attila's favourite son Irnach (Hernac,
Irnas). In the sixth century the empire gradually disintegrated into petty States,
whose princes frequently interfered in the wars between Persia and Byzantium, or
took up arms against each other. In 558 an army of Huns advanced to the gates
of Constantinople. As the power of the Huns broke ip, the separate elements of
which this heterogeneous nation of warriors was c mposed recovered individual
importance, until finally even the name of Huns diss ipeared from history.
The same fate befell another very mixed branch - the Hun nation, the " White
Huns," or Hephtalites (Tin la ; cf. p. 144), who had firmly planted themselves in
the modern Khiva, and after 420 made vigorous attacks on Persia. The Sassanid
king, Peroz, fell in battle against them (484). The year 531 saw the last fights
with these Huns, some of whom were destined to reappear under a new name and
mixed with other nations as K(a)haresmians.
F. CENTRAL ASIA AFTER THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE OF THE HUNS
(a) The Sien Pe and the Yen Yen. — After the disruption of the great Hun
Empire in Central Asia and the retreat of most of the Huns to the west, the major
part of Mongolia had fallen to the Sien pe, since the Chinese had neither the wish nor
the power to hold the immense region of the steppes. The Tungusian nation of the
Sien pe came originally from the modern Manchuria, and by its advance to the west;1
during which it probably absorbed the remnants of the Huns and other inhabitants
Of the steppes, it introduced a new ingredient into the hotchpotch of nations in the
pasture lands of Mongolia. Like all nomad peoples, the Sien pe broke up into a
number of petty States, which usually had their own political systems, but - were
occasionally united under an energetic ruler, and then constituted -a formidable
power,- which soon made its influence felt in China and in the Tarim basin.
156 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
Some such rapid rise of the Sien pe occurred about 150 A. D., when Tun shih
huai (Dardjegwe ?) placed himself at the head of one of their tribes and soon ex-
tended his power far over the adjacent peoples. This new nomad empire was
hardly inferior in size to the earlier Hun empire, and comprised roughly the same
countries, since then, as formerly, the line of least resistance lay due east and west.
Even the division of their gigantic territory into a central kingdom with an eastern
and a western province was once more adopted by the Sien pe. Since it was vir-
tually the personality of the ruler which kept the empire together, the power of the
Sien pe was considerably diminished by the death of their first prince (190), and
would certainly have given way to the influence of China, had not this danger been
averted by the overthrow of the Han dynasty in China (220) and by the disorders
which subsequently ensued. The Sien pe were thus able to realise for a moment
the great ambition of the ruling nomad tribes, namely, to bring under their control
the Western trade. Like the Huns before them, they had, for this purpose, to come
to terms with the Tibetan nomads in the south of the Tarim basin.
During the civil wars in China several hordes of the Sien pe found a welcome
opportunity of migrating into that country, where they either served as merce-
naries or founded independent States. The most powerful of these tribes were the
To ba (T'opa, T'ufa). Between 338 and 376 the house of To ba ruled the State
of Tai in Northern Shansi. In 386 Kuei, who belonged to that dynasty, founded
there the Northern (Pei) We, which expanded farther and farther over Northern
China, until it practically covered the same area as the We of the " three king-
doms " (p. 86). In 534 Pei We broke up into the Eastern (Tung) and the West-
ern (Hsi) We, which were overthrown in 550 and 557 (p. 89). Wu ku, also a
member of the house of To ba, governor of Hohsi after 394, declared himself king
of Hsi ping in 397, and formed the State of Nan Liang, which was conquered in
414 by the prince of Hsi Chin. The To ba had soon become Chinese in life and
thought, and they were forced to confront their kinsmen, the nomads of the steppes,
entirely in the spirit of the traditional policy of China.
The condition of Mongolia had changed in the course of time. The empire of
the Sien pe crumbled away after the strongest and most numerous hordes had
migrated to China, and its place was taken by a new one under the rule of the
Yen Yen (Gun gen, Shuan Shuan), a mixed people, which apparently had incorpo-
rated fragments of primitive Siberian peoples, but linguistically belonged to the
Turco-Tartar race. In the early stages of their history the Yen Yen appear to have
acquired so invidious a reputation for barbarity and vice, that they aroused disgust
even among their nomad neighbours, who certainly were not fastidious in this re-
spect. The emperors of the We dynasty long held this refractory people in check.
The Yen Yen ultimately founded their power at the close of the fourth century
by the subjugation of the industrious tribes of the Altai range ; they proceeded
further to the west and obtained possession of the Central Asiatic trade routes, and
extended their influence over Mongolia as far as the frontiers of Korea. The
ruler to whom they owed this rapid rise was Talun (Shelun, Zarun). From the
name of his successor, Tatara (Dudar), is said to be derived the designation " Tar-
tars," which in time has become usual for the peoples of the Turco-Mongolian
stock.
The To ba in Northern China soon saw themselves involved in arduous wars
with the new nomad empire, but in the end proved fully a match for it. After the
Central Asia
and Siberi
f] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 157
Yen Yen, in 425 and on many subsequent occasions, had received heavy reverses in
their attacks on China, and had been pursued into their own territory, the Pei We,
according to the time-honoured Chinese policy, extended their influence once more
along the old trade route to the west, and thus sapped the very foundations of the
opposition of the nomads. Alliances with the two other empires, into which
China then was divided, those of the Sung and the Liang, brought little advantage
to the Yen Yen ; they were repeatedly defeated, and were unable to regain the
command of the trade routes, although in the year 471 they reduced the kingdoms
of Kashgar and Khotan to great straits. The Yen Yen were not completely over-
thrown by the Chinese. It was not until the middle of the sixth century that
their kingdom, weakened by internal dissensions, fell before the onslaught of the
Turks. A great part of the people followed the example of the Huns and fled to
the west. The Avars, who soon afterward appeared as conquerors in East Europe,
are probably identical with the Yen Yen. Like the remnants of the Yen Yen in
Central Asia, the Avars finally disappeared altogether or were absorbed by the
other nations.
(&) The Uigurians. — When we see these nomad empires attaining such gigan-
tic size and then 'completely disappearing, we may easily forget that Central Asia
was not exclusively a region where wandering hordes fed their flocks and herds,
but that it offered homes and food to more or less settled peoples. It has already
been shown how flourishing and comparatively civilized settlements developed in
the Tarim basin, owing to the favourable position for the trade of East and West,
and became the centres of small States. But there were trade routes even further
north which led to the west, and at the foot of the mountains lay districts which
were adapted for agriculture. Still further away towered the Altai, with its rich
mines, the focus of a primitive civilization, which, in spite of countless raids by
nomads, was still vigorous.
It is certain that numerous towns and permanently settled nations were to be
found from the Tian shan to the Altai. Political power, however, lay mostly in
the hands of the nomads, who stamped their character on the constitution of the
country, and thus do not appear even in the earliest records as true disseminators
of culture. The Uigurians (Jugures, Igures, Shui She) were long the most impor-
tant nation of this region ; they formed the nucleus of the nine Oghuz (hordes),
to which the Tongra, Sukit, Adiz, Sap, etc., belonged. A distinction was made
between a northern branch of the Uigurians which was settled on the Selenga and
subsequently spread to the sources of the Yenissei, and a southern branch in the
south and east of the Tian shan. While the northern Uigurians, called by
the Chinese Kao che, or Thin le, did not attain any high degree of civilization,
the southern Uigurians, whose country was touched or traversed by the most im-
portant trade routes from west to east, were not unaffected by the civilized nations
(cf. below, p. 168). A remarkable mixture of civilizations, which had a momen-
tous influence on the life of the other nomad peoples, was developed in the towns
of the southern Uigurians.
G. THE TURKISH EMPIRES
THE supremacy of the Yen Yen in Mongolia was broken by the Turks (Tu
kiu), a nation which significantly became powerful on the Altai. The Turks,
"158 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapterti
it is true, do not belong at all to the old representatives of civilization of Yenissean
.stock on the Altai; they were genuine nomads of Mongolian descent, probably one
of those fragments of the great Hun people, which gradually increased again in
numbers and importance. But the mineral wealth of the Altai doubtless furnished
a source of power, which they knew how to use, whether they themselves mined
and smelted, or entrusted this work to their subjects, the old settled inhabitants.
The term " our smiths " which the Yen Yen applied to the Turks on the outbreak
of the war was probably only a deliberate taunt, and not in accordance with facts.
It must be observed, however, that among the nomads of Central Asia the trade of
the smith was held in high esteem, quite otherwise than, for example, among the
nomad tribes of North Africa, and that in Mongolian tradition even the legendary
national hero Genghis Khan appears as a smith. At any rate, the superior arma-
ment of breastplates, helmets, swords, and lances, and the marvellous " singing
arrows," rendered possible by the rich mines, contributed greatly toward securing
for the originally not very numerous Turks the victory over their opponents.
(a) The Beginnings. — The national legend of the Turks traces the descent of
the nation from a boy whom a she-wolf suckled. This tradition, which recalls
the story of Eomulus and Eemus, refers, like it, to toternistic customs, for a golden
wolf head was the badge of Turkish warriors. The scanty Chinese accounts
represent the Turks as a branch of the Aschin (Asona), Huns who, after their
expulsion from China by the We dynasty, placed themselves under the protection of
the Yen Yen, and were allotted (in 439) settlements by these on the southern slopes
•of the Altai. Few traces of Chinese civilization seem to have been retained by
them ; on the other hand, they appear to have acquired some culture from the
Uigurians, to which fact the adoption of the Uigurian script points (see the inserted
plate, "The Eighth Page of the Kudatku Bilik"). The feuds of the northern
Uigurians with the Yen Yen offered to the Turks a welcome opportunity of further
advances. At the first contest of the two peoples (in 490) the Turks made no
movement, but when in the year 536 an Uigurian army marched eastward, and in
so doing touched Turkish territory, the ruling chief of the Turks, Tu inyn, attacked
and conquered them, and incorporated into his people the whole tribe of fifty
thousand Yurtes. The ease with which this amalgamation was effected betokens
the close affinity which existed between the peoples on the boundless steppes of
Central Asia. Tu myn was now in a position to defy the Yen Yen, whose power
had long been tottering, and he did so after the prince of the Yen Yen had con-
temptuously rejected him as a suitor for the hand of one of his daughters. In the
year 552 the overthrow of the empire of the Yen Yen was complete, and the Turks
now assumed the headship of the Central Asiatic nomads, whose conditions on the
whole were little altered by this change of rulers.
Since the traditional policy of aggression against China was rendered hopeless
by the now firmly consolidated power of that State, the Turks turned toward the
west, along the, road which the Huns had pointed out to all succeeding peoples ;
even Uigurian armies had penetrated to the Volga in 463. The first success of the
Turks was the subjugation of Sogdiana, where the descendants of the Yue tshi.
still maintained their supremacy, and an advance had been made toward the Tariin
basin. By the year 437 nine States existed in Sogdiana which were ruled by
.princes of the dynasty of the Can wu (Yue tshi). The most important of them was
THE EIGHTH PAGE FKOM THE OLD TUEKISH BOOK OF ETHICS,
THE KUDATKU BILIK
TRANSLITERATION
[VII. Jaruk jaz fazlin Uluk Bokra kan
oktiisuii ajor.
. TRANSLATION
[VII. The Season of Bright Spring, the Praise
of the Great Bokra.
86 tapukka kelikli kut kapukta turur
kapukta turukli tapukta turur.
J7 bu janglik tapukka jilindi agun
jaki bojni ikti kopardi cizu'n
38 agim da c'avi bardi Chakan kcizi
kciri munkli kozlerde jini 6'zi
39 agun encke tekti tiizlildi torii
torii birle atin kopardi orii
40 aki suretin kirn korein tese
kelib korkii Chakan jiizi oze
41 gefa siz vefalik tilese kutun
ju'ru'n kijr kilingi vefa ol biitiin
42 tiiziin kilki aleak bakirsak kongiil
korein tese kel muni kor emol
43 asik kolsa barca oziing jaz sirin
beri kel tapuk kil kongiil barasiu
44 ej etkii kilinc hasili etkii uruk
agun taplasuni kesiksiz kuruk
45 hajat berdi arzu eter keng koti
munung siikri kilku okub ming ati
46 eti kecki soz bu meselde kelir
ata ati orni okulka kalir
47 ata orni kaldi ati da bile
atinda taki bolku ming ming jile
48 tuc'i neng neguk tarti jiiz ming ilik
muni kol neguki kudatku bilik
49 olarning neguki kelir hem barir
mening bu neguk boldi mingi kalir
50 naea bersa diinja tiiker alkinuv
bitisa kalir soz agun tiskinur
51 Kitabta bitildi bu Chakan ati
bu at mingi boldi eter keng kuti
52 ja reb isde devlet tokel kil tilek
kamuk iske bolkil sen arka jiilek
53 severin esen tut jakisin ketiir
kevingin tolu tut sivingin kotur
54 jaka turku jamkur jasilku cecek
kovurmiis jikac salinku kesek
55 bolur bolsa ebren tuci ebrilir
kuti boiku diismen basi kobkolur
56 .jakiz jer bakir bolmakinca kizil
ja otta cecek onmekinoe jasil
36 who enters service stands at the gate,
who stands at the gate stands and serves.
37 For such service the world has bestirred itself,
the enemy has bowed his back and risen up.
38 The voice and glance of the Chakan penetrated
the world. || with longing eye ... he himself . . .
39 The world obtained rest, order was created,
his name was uplifted with the law.
40 whoever would see the form of magnanimity,
let him come and behold the countenance of
the Chakan. [suffering,
41 Whoever would have joy and happiness without
Let him look on him, his acts are pure joy.
42 If thou wouldst see one of gentle nature
and noble heart, come, look on him.
43 Wouldst thou be profited, reveal thy whole
secret, [| approach and serve with cheerful heart.
44 Oh, noble deed, sprung from noble stock,
may the world honour unceasingly . . .
45 God has granted the wish, and given complete
happiness, || thanks must be rendered him and
his name praised for ever.
46 A very ancient saying lies in this proverb :
"The father's name and place remain for the
son."
47 The father's place remained with his name
may his name remain among others a thousand
and a thousand years.
48 A hundred thousand hands have carried away
all possessions and dignity, ]| seek this dignity,
the " happy knowledge."
49 Your dignity comes and goes away again,
this my dignity remains for ever. [sitory,
50 All that the world gives is delusive and tran-
but the written word endures, so long as the
world moves. [book,
51 This name of the Chakan was written in the
this name has become everlasting and gives rich
store of happiness. [doings,
52 Oh God ! let happiness be perfected in hi*
in every action be thou a support and help.
53 Keep his friend, banish his enemy,
Fill him with confidence, bless him with joy.
54 Let the rain fall, let the flowers spring up.
The parched trees shall shake their brandies.
55 Fate revolves ever as it wills, || Let him succeed.
and the head of the enemy is hollowed out.
56 Until the grey earth becomes red as copper
or until green grass grows in the fira
57 tirilsuni . . . 6zi ruing kutun
tokiilku karaki koriimez urun
58 taki da negii ersa arzu tilek
bajattin jetilku angga kut jiilek
59 siviugin ebingin kebinin jag All
asaku jasasuni Lokmau jili
VIII. Jeti jolduz 0:1 iki ogek burc un ajor
1 Bajat ati birle soziik baslatim
toretken jikitken keciirken Idirn
2 Toretti tilektek tozi alemin
jarutti ag~unda kiiniin hem ajin
3 jaratti kor abran tuc'i abrilur
aning birle teskinc jime teskinur
4 jasil kok jaratti jime jolduzi
kara tiin jaratti jaruk kiindiizi
5 bu kokteki jolduz bir naca bekek
bir naca kiitez ci bu jekke jekek
6 bir naca kulakuz bolur jitsa jol
bir naca jarutmis chalik ke ol
7 kajusi oriirek kajusi koti
kajusi jarukrak kaju oksiiti
57 may he ever live with thousand fold happiness,
may his eye reach to lands invisible.
58 Whatever be his wish and desire, )| Happiness
and help thereto shall come from God.
59 With joy, pleasure, and contentment
may he live happily to the age of Lokman.
VIII. On the Seven Stars (Planets) and the
Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.
1 With the name of God I have begun my speech,
Oh God, my creator, who doth destroy and
forgive.
2 He created at will all the worlds, || he made the
sun and the moon to shine in the world.
3 Behold ! he created the ever circling heaven,
all things move, moving together with it.
4 He created the blue sky and all the stars,
he made the black night as bright as the day.
5 of the stars in the heaven some . . .
Some are the sentinels of these . . .
6 Some show the path to men who have lost
their way, || some are illumined by the creator.
7 one is higher, the other is beneath,
one is brighter, the other is dark.
The Kudatku Bilik (" the Blessing of Knowledge ") is a system of moral philosophy in
•rhymed verses, which expounds the relation of the individual to the transitory world and to the.
inexorable destinies of fate. It deals with the duties of a prince toward his people, with the char-
acteristics of the different official classes, and with the virtues which belong to an honest career
and the vices which corrode society. It is a code of morals according to the old Turkish ideas.
The work was composed in eighteen months by a certain Nusuf in the reign of Bokra (or Boghra)
Khan, by whom he was rewarded with the title of Privy Vizier. The full name of the author,
therefore, runs, Nusuf Khass Hadjib. The first half was composed in the most eastern part of
East Turkestan (Kliami ?), the second in Kashgar. The work has been preserved for us in a copy
made at Herat in the year of the Hegira, 843 (= 1440 A. r>.), which thirty-six years later came to
Tokat in Asia Minor and reached Constantinople in 1492 A. D. Thence it came into the possession
of Baron Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall, from whom it passed to the Imperial Library at Vienna.
The Kudatku Bilik, the oldest linguistic monument and literary product of the Turkish
nations, furnishes the first trustworthj' information, not merely of the particular dialect, but of the
whole life and habits of the Uigurians, one of the oldest tribes of the Turkish nationalities, who
led a nomad existence in Eastern Turkestan (Hami, Turfan, and Karashar), between the Manchus
in the east and the Parsees in the west. The Kudatku Bilik, dating from tbe year 462-463 of
the Hegira (1068-1069 A. D.), mentions an independent Kashgar kingdom, where the above-men-
tioned Bokra Khan reigned, and a prince in the east. The Uigurians therefore composed several
small separate States. Tbe upper classes of the tribe were the Black People (the nobles) and the
officials or servants. The population was made up of merchants, fanners, and cattle-breeders;
there were also Seid, physicians, magicians, and astrologers. Among the government officials are
mentioned the vizier, the general, the secretary, the ambassador, and the keeper of the gate. The
public and private life was of a completely patriarchal character. The emphasis laid on the
importance of science and learning is especially noteworthy.
Uigurian is the first dialect of Turkish which was reduced to writing, and has, therefore,
retained the oldest forms and roots of the language. The alphabet is the Syro-Sabocan. It was
not until the descendants of Genghis Khan professed Islam, and the learning of the western
Mohammedans conquered Central Asia, that the old Uigurian characters, in which Emir Timur
as late as 1 379 issued proclamations on the banks of the Dnieper, had to give way to the newly
adopted Arabian, and were driven back into the valleys of the Tienshan.
(Mostly from Hermann Vambery, " Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik."
Innsbruck, 1870.)
THE EIGHTH PAGE FROM THE OLD TURKISH BOOK OF ETHICS,
THE KUDAT KU BILIK
159
: Samarkand.. In Tashkent, Ferghana, and Kharismia other dynasties occupied the
t thrones. The conquest of Sogdiana, the petty States of which, however, had hardly
: disappeared, gave the Turkish conquerors an interest in the Western trade,
especially in the export of silk from Sogdiana, which was then hindered by the
Persians, probably because in Persia itself the breeding of silkworms was a preva-
, lent industry, and also because silk was obtained from China by the sea route.
The attempt to win the desired object from the Persians by diplomacy led to a
long series of hostile complications. The Turks then determined to enter into
direct communication with the Byzantines, who must have been equally interested
in breaking the Persian trading monopoly (569). A Turkish embassy arrived at
Constantinople, in consequence of which Zimarch (Zemarkh) went to the capital
of the Turkish Great Khan in the Altai with a commission from Justin II, the
Byzantine emperor. We possess his detailed account of the journey and of the
- battles of the Turks against the " White Huns " and the Persians, at some of which
he was present. We learn from him also that the west of the Tarim basin then fell
, into the power of the Turks. Later, the Byzantines also, in spite of their cautious
policy, were hard pressed by the Turks, since with the period of the Turkish power
.generally a fresh flood of Central Asiatic tribes poured over Western Asia and
Europe. The Khazars, who advanced in 626 to East Europe, were a detached
.fragment of the Turkish nation. As might be expected, attacks were made on
China so soon as any opportunity presented itself.
(b) The Eastern and Western Turks. — China now adopted her successful
policy of sowing seeds of dissension among the nomads. The Turkish Empire,
like the earlier empires, split up into an eastern and a western province, which
. were governed by a viceroy, while the centre, both in peace and war, was under the
command of the supreme ruler. The Chinese, about the year 600, succeeded in
weakening permanently the power of the Turks by dividing the empire into an
eastern and a western part.
In the year 630 the Chinese armies won a brilliant victory over the eastern
Turks, in which the -khan, Kin Li, was captured; thus Chinese influence was
again extended to Sogdiana. The eastern empire then broke up into a number of
weak and petty States ; but part of the Turks migrated to China, where settlements
: were assigned to them in order that they might serve as a frontier guard against
other nomad tribes. The people, which had not forgotten its old fame, became in
Chinese territory once more so strong that in 681, under. Qutluq (Ko to lo, Ku tut
;luk), it was able to shake off the Chinese rule and spread its influence over Mon-
golia. The power of the Turks grew still stronger under Me chun (Me tsu), the
brother and successor of Qutluq, who skilfully availed himself of the disputes for
the Chinese throne. Once more the Turkish Empire became a mighty power.
. Even the western Turks seem temporarily to have been subjugated, and the Turkish
supremacy was re-established in Sogdiana, where the petty States of the Yue tshi
still existed.
After Me chun's death, Kultegin, the commander of the army, a nephew of the
dead man, murdered the lawful heir, his cousin, and placed his own brother Me ki
( lien on the throne. We have accurate accounts of these events from the inscrip-
tions on the grave-pillars of Orkhon. The east Turkish Empire still kept its posi-
tion as a formidable, power. But its decline . recommenced, and the end was
160 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter II
produced by a coalition of the Uigurians and Chinese in the year 745. From that
date the Turks almost disappear from the history of Central Asia. The fall of the
Turkish power was hastened by the advance of the Arabs, who in the meantime
had conquered Persia and penetrated to Sogdiana, where some of the princes sought
help from the Turks and fought with chequered success against their new oppres-
sors. In 712 the Arabs won a brilliant victory over the allied Sogdians and Turks,
the latter probably led by Kultegin. In the year 730, however, they met with a
severe defeat at Samarkand from the same antagonists. The necessity under which
they lay of defending themselves on different sides certainly helped to effect the
rapid fall of the east Turkish Empire.
The western Turks, soon after their separation from the east empire, had been
forced to acknowledge a sort of suzerainty of Persia. In 620, however, they felt
themselves strong enough to extend their empire (which must have lain between
the Altai and the Sea of Aral), and to invade Persia and Sogdiana. Turkish mer-
cenaries or allies played a momentous part in the contests for the Persian throne
at that time. All the conquered territory, indeed, was very loosely united, as is
invariably the case witli nomad empires, and when occasion offered it was the
more easily broken up again, since the nomad is never so closely attached to his
country as the agriculturist. Instances occur where entire nations crossed the
steppes of Central Asia in their fullest extent, in order to escape the yoke of a
hated conqueror and to seek protection perhaps on the Chinese frontier. The
western Turks then had command of the northern trade routes of Central Asia so-
far as they passed through the Uigurian country. Since the Chinese thereupon
favoured the southern roads through the Tarim basin, Turks and Uigurians com-
bined and invaded the petty States of that district, attacked Hami, which was
occupied by the Chinese, and thus compelled China to act on the defensive (639).
These disorders lasted for a long time, but finally ended in favour of the Chinese.
Soon afterward the advance of the Arabs through Persia was felt by the western
Turks, while the Chinese armies pressed on threateningly from the east. The
result was the almost complete fall of the power of the western Turks, and their
inheritance passed for a short period to the Tibetans, who had become powerful in
the interval. It was not until the year 700 that the empire revived, only to find
itself soon entangled in bitter wars with the Arabs. It was almost more shattered
by remarkable factions at the court and within the tribal federation, the true cause
of which, whether ethnic, social, or political, cannot be discovered. There was a
black and a yellow party, which often fought furiously together and put forward
their own candidates whenever the succession to the throne was disputed. The
complete overthrow of the empire was effected in 760 by the Qarluk (Ko lo hi),
a tribe of the Turco-Mongolian race living to the west of the Altai range. The
remnants appear in later history as Ghuzes (Oghuz). We have already seen in
Vol. Ill how the Turkish tribes, which conformed to Islam, such as the Seljuks
and later the Osmans, found a field for their warlike activity in West Asia.
(c) The Kirghiz and the 'Khitan. — In Central Asia the place of the Turks as
the dominant people was taken by the nomad Uigurians, who were then called
Hoei he (Goei he, Shui she). Their chief opponents were the Kirghiz (Hakas)
in southwestern Siberia, who now for the first time came forward as a powerful
people and tried to enter into direct relations with China. In alliance with the
Central Asia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
161
Chinese they shattered the Uigurian supremacy in the year 830. The question at
issue seems once more to have been the command of the trading communications
with the west. The Kirghiz then appeared as the connecting agents, who con-
ducted with armed escorts Arabian caravans to China through the hostile Uigurian
territory. The Kirghiz never founded an empire of equal extent with that of the
Huns or Turks. The Uigurian empire was always restricted to a limited area
(cf. the explanation of the plate, p. 158).
Later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the nation of the Khitan (Chitan),
which was mainly of Tungusian stock, extended its rule from Manchuria over a
large part of the steppes of Central Asia, until the Mongols founded a new world-
empire in that region.
H. TIBET
TIBET foi a long period was little affected by the enormous revolutions that
convulsed Central Asia, and in any case it was only its frontier that felt them.
These frontier tribes of Tibet were formerly further removed from the centre. On
the south the Himalayas always formed a strong barrier, but to the north Tibetans
were settled as far as the Tarim basin, and even a great part of Southeastern China
was filled with Tibetan tribes, which were only gradually absorbed by the Chinese
population. Tibet proper lay completely off the main track. The roads of trade
and culture did not traverse the country ; nor did the desolate plateau, scorched by
intolerable summer heats and lashed by winter snowstorms, allure the neighbour-
ing nomads to daring raids, which might at least have interrupted the stereotyped
monotony of existence, and thus created movement and life. The achievements
of civilization were slow in permeating to this region, and it was long before the
seeds of progress sprang up from the barren ground.
Originally all Tibetan peoples must have lived that life of mere hunters which
appears to be the lowest grade of human existence. Tibet, in spite of its desola-
tion, was adapted for this mode of life. However poor it might be in edible wild
plants, it teemed with beasts of the chase, which even now cover the country in
immense herds. The old agricultural life, which originated with the brachy-
cephalic race, was only followed in the advanced posts of the Tibetan people,
which were settled in the Tarim basin on the trading route, and found in the oases
suitable tracts of country at their disposal. The reason why they did not spread
further toward Tibet is mainly due to the fact that the only districts at all adapted
for agriculture lay far to the south, in the upper valleys of the Brahmaputra and
the Indus. Any germs of culture that developed in these southern tracts were
brought from India, and naturally not until the Aryan inhabitants of India had
•created a civilization of their own. This circumstance thus helps to explain the
slow advance of civilization in Tibet as well as the enormous influence of India on
what was once purely a Central Asiatic region.
What the inhabitants of Northern and Central Tibet derived from Central Asia
was not the old agricultural life, but the newer social economy of the nomad tribes.
It must remain a moot point whether Tibetans were in this matter mere recipients,
or whether by the domestication of the yak they did not greatly add to the number
of useful animals. The wild yak is spread so far to the north that a tribe of Turco-
Mongolian or even Aryan race may have made the first attempts at breeding them.
In any case the wagon was hardly known in Tibet as a means of transport, but
VOL. II— 11
162 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
animals, and especially the yak, were exclusively used to carry burdens. The
introduction of nomadic habits gave the Tibetans, especially those of the north, a
greater mobility, allowed an increase of population, and gradually taught them the
warlike marauding life peculiar to all nomads. It would seem that the bow also,
which is not the national weapon in Tibet, was introduced from the north.
(a) Pre-historic Age of Tibet. — The Tibetan tribes may have waged little wars
on each other, and also on the nomad peoples of Mongolian race living to the
north, but no historically important struggles took place until the growing power
of Tibet sought its booty among the settled nations. The roads to the south and
west were completely barred, but, in compensation, the great commercial route on
the north, with its trading stations and oases, was exposed to attack, and on the
northeast the riches of China itself presented a goal for profitable raids. In
Mongolia the mighty empire of the Huns had already been formed out of small
tribes, which combined for such marauding expeditions. In Tibet, where the con-
ditions were far less favourable, the political unification of the separate hordes began
far later and was less successful. Occasionally, indeed, some frontier tribes had
an opportunity of interfering in the internal affairs of China. A doubtful account
states that Tibetan auxiliaries appeared in the Chinese service in 1123 B.C., but no
large empire appears to have been formed until the advent of Buddhism, which
with its proselytising power levelled the barriers between rival tribes, first stimu-
lated national union.
The Tibetan history, the " Book of the Kings," which only appeared compara-
tively late under the influence of Chinese models, contains a legendary account of
the prehistoric period, which naturally is untrustworthy in its details, but proves
from what sources the Tibetans themselves derived their civilization. According
to it there appeared, in the first century B. c., in the country to the south of the
modern Lhasa, a marvellously endowed child, whom the wild natives soon regarded
as their heaven-sent leader. This child, an invention clearly on the model of
the infant Dalai-Lamas of a later age, was a direct descendant of Buddha. He
founded a kingdom, the subjects of which were gradually raised by his successors
to higher grades of culture, precisely in the way in which Chinese prehistory
traces the progress of civilization. Under the seventh monarch, in the second cen-
tury A. D., smelting, the use of the plough, and irrigation were discovered. In the
fifth century the fields were enclosed, articles of clothing were made from leather,
and walnut-trees were planted. Soon afterward the yak was crossed with the ox,
and mules were bred, etc. Although the legend does not acknowledge any direct
introduction of Indian civilization into Tibet, still the fact that the centre of cul-
ture lay in the vicinity of the Indian frontier, and that the genealogy of the royal
house was traced from Buddha, points unmistakably to this source. The widening
dissemination of Buddhist doctrine, in India (cf. Section IV of this volume) had
fired a missionary zeal there, which brought the new faith, and in its train a
higher civilization, over the dreaded barrier of the Himalayan snows. From the
West, also, where the Buddhist doctrine spread as far as the Tarim basin, Tibet
felt this same influence, and when the new faith struck root even in China, Tibet
as the connecting link between China and Central Asia on the one side, and India
on the other, suddenly acquired a new importance ; and finally, after the decay
of Buddhism in the Indian mother-country, Tibet became the peculiar home and
sanctuary of the northern worshippers of Buddha.
Central Asiti~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
163
While in Southern Tibet a small civilized State gradually developed, which
depended for its power and prosperity on agriculture, the northern nomads had
also begun to organise themselves, and in so doing may have been influenced by
the example of the neighbouring Chinese constitution, and of the nomad kingdoms
in Central Asia. The northeastern tribes of Tibet, called by the Chinese Ti
(Tufau), played, in the first century after the Christian era, on a small scale the
role of the Central Asiatics, since they figured at one time as enemies, at another
as allies, of the Chinese kingdoms and their claimants. Tibetan chieftains even
appear as rulers of small Chinese States in the same way as Hun and Turkish
princes usurped the thrones of isolated kingdoms. The Khiang, who lived to the
southeast of the Tarim basin and menaced trade communications with the west,
were another branch of the Tibetan race.
(b) The Empire of Tibet. — No real empire was established until, in the course
of the sixth century B. c., the civilized State in the south brought the northern
nomads also under its influence. A power was created which had a large share in
the further political development of Central Asia. Almost impregnable in its own
country, it held a menacing position on the southwest frontier of China and on the
trade routes which crossed the Tarim basin. The shifting fortunes of the Turkish
empires offered ample opportunities of interference.
The empire of Tibet first aroused the attention of the Chinese in the year 589.
With what deliberate purpose the Tibetan rulers endeavoured to advance their
civilization by Indian influence is shown by the embassy to India in 632, which
resulted in a more accurate knowledge of the Buddhist religion and in the inven-
tion of a script formed after the Indian model. Even then Lhasa was the capital
of the empire and the focus of religious life. The relations of the new empire
with China were friendly at first ; but very soon the pretext for war was given by
an incident of a kind not unusual in the history of Central Asiatic kingdoms :
the request of the Tibetan monarch for the hand of a Chinese princess was insult-
ingly refused. Since, however, the king obtained his wish in the end, the cam-
paign cannot have resulted so favourably for the Chinese as their historians would
have us believe. But the Tibetan preferred to turn his arms for the future against
the Tarim basin, where there was a state of anarchy which offered greater prospects
of successful conquest ; and by the year 680 the power of Tibet extended as far as
the Tian shan. A combined attack of the Chinese and Turks in 692 had indeed
the momentary effect of driving back the Tibetans; but they returned to the
attack, and pressed on in 715 as far as Ferghana, after they had concluded an
alliance with the Arabs. During the whole of the eighth century Tibet remained
the foremost power in the south of Central Asia, and a formidable enemy of China,
the capital of which was actually stormed and plundered by the Tibetans in the
year 763. It was not until 820 that a permanent peace was concluded between
Tibet and China, and a pillar with an inscription was erected in Lhasa to com-
memorate the event.
(c) The Fall of the Tibetan Empire. — In the course of the ninth century the
power of Tibet rapidly diminished. The Uigurians seized the borderland on the
north, and Hsia successfully took over the duty of guarding the frontier against
the decaying empire of Tibet. This kingdom (more accurately Hsi Hsia, Western
104 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
Hsia ; cf. p. 92) had been formed in 884, at the time of the Tang dynasty, on the
upper course of the Hoangho. The royal house was descended from the Toba
dynasty of Pei We, which had been destroyed in North China in 557 ; but Tan-
gutes, that is to say, near kinsmen of the Tibetans, formed the picked warriors of
the people. In 1032 the State made itself completely independent of the northern
Sung dynasty which ruled in Southern China and subsequently maintained its
position, since it allied itself at one time with the Sung, at another with the
Khitan, and later with the Kin, who were supreme in Northern China. The inde-
pendent position of the country was outwardly demonstrated (and this is a fea-
ture which frequently recurs in Central Asia) by the invention of a new script,
which was mainly based on the ancient Chinese signs. We have only brief rec-
ords of the wars of the Hsia kingdom. An invasion of the Tibetans in 1076
ended in a precipitate retreat, the result, it is said, of a superstitious panic which
seized the army. In 1227 the Hsia kingdom was annihilated by the Mongols
(cf. below, p. 173).
The fall of the political power of Tibet must be ultimately traced to the fact
that Buddhism then permeated the country, crippled the secular power, and
effected a thorough spiritual revolution in the minds of the people. Buddhism
soon assumed a peculiar character in that isolated country. The priests of Tibet
showed little appreciation of the more subtle theological and philosophical dis-
putes and doctrines of their Indian or Chinese co-religionists. But all the more
important was the influence of the originally Shamanistic national religion, which
exalted the Buddhist clergy and monks into magicians and ascribed to them all
the various arts of a degraded mysticism. This is the explanation of the com-
manding position which the Buddhist priesthood was able to acquire in Tibet, and
of the chaos of superstitious ideas which gradually spread thence over Central
Asia.
After the end of the ninth century Tibet led a quiet existence, which in no
respect excited the attention of its neighbours. In the year 1015 alone an armed
quarrel with China caused a short interruption of this tranquillity. Relations with
China had again slightly improved the culture of the country. After the entry of
the Chinese princess mentioned on page 163, the knowledge had been acquired of
making wine from rice or barley, of erecting water mills, and weaving stuffs.
Chinese artisans also had come into the country, and the sons of the best families
were frequently sent to China to be educated. Tibetan civilization, which had been
at first entirely subject to Indian influence, took more and more a Chinese stamp,
until finally the storm of the Mongols swept over Tibet, and brought the country
into a still closer political union with China.
/. THE STATE OF CIVILIZATION AND RELIGION IN CENTRAL ASIA DOWN TO THE
TIME OF THE MONGOLS
THE example of Tibet shows how closely the progress of civilization is con-
nected with religious propaganda, and how the wish to spread their own peculiar
creed can be the chief cause why members of a more highly civilized people ven-
ture to be the apostles of culture in the most remote and most uninviting regions
of the world. But this is not a unique phenomenon in Central Asia. However
greatly the trade between East and West promoted the civilization of Central
C fnt nil .4xia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
185
Asia, it cannot be disputed that the most strenuous work in the cause of culture
was done by those who, as preachers of the different world religions, penetrated
into the heart of Asia, or marched toward the east on the great commercial roads.
Religious zeal alone created that endurance and self-denial which all must possess
who attempt to sow in backward nations the seeds of a higher culture and of
nobler modes of life. It is an important fact that among the civilized countries
which border upon Central Asia China alone produced no world religion, properly
so called, and sent out no missionaries apart from Buddhists. In consequence of
this, the Chinese never succeeded in firmly attaching the Central Asiatics to them,
selves until they finally found in their encouragement of the Buddhist teaching a.
substitute which did them inestimable service in taming the wild nomad hordes.
The original " religion " of the Central Asiatics was doubtless that simple
mysticism which under various forms is to be found in all primitive peoples. The
chief duties of the wizard priests, who are revered as possessors of mystic powers,
consist in averting evil influences and in healing diseases. That belief in one
supreme divinity, which is usually found in such cases, has only a subordinate
significance and has little influence on the spiritual life. The characteristic form
of lower mysticism among the Northern and Central Asiatics is Shamanism. The
shaman, or sorcerer, works himself up to a frenzy by beating a drum or by other simi-
lar methods, and then enters into communication with the spirit world, about the
nature of which very different ideas, partly influenced by the civilized religions, pre-
vail among the various nations. Even where a higher form of religion has already
penetrated, Shamanism usually remains for a long time as a popular national cus-
tom ; in fact, it stamps a peculiar local character on these religions. In the eyes
of the nomads of Central Asia, all priests were a kind of shamans, from whom
cures, prophecies, and miracles might be expected. This led to perverted forms of
the original religious doctrines, from which neither Buddhists nor Nestorians were
exempt.
Every higher form of religion is based on written records and has its sacred
books. It thus follows that writing, the first great step toward culture, spreads
most quickly in the train of a religious propaganda. Art also follows in the steps
of religion. Images of deities and saints, or temples erected in their honour, form
part of the indispensable equipment of the missionaries, and announce the victory
of the new doctrine (see the illustration, " The Gate of Kiu-yung kwan," p. 168).
It is thus conceivable that the position of Central Asia between important
spheres of civilization and foci of religious doctrines must certainly have led to a
marvellous mixture of influences, amongst which the original racial characteristics
were still discernible. We must not forget in this connection that the oases of
Central Asia were themselves the sites of an ancient civilization, but that this
civilization after the irruption of warlike nomad peoples rested on so narrow a
foundation that it could not have made any continuous progress without the
stimulating example of other civilizations. The blending of religions and civiliza-
tions was accelerated by the fact that rival doctrines did not make their appear-
ances successively, but that the majority of them began to strike root in Central
Asia side by side during the centuries preceding and following the Christian
era. Buddhism appeared the earliest on the scene, and also exercised the greatest
influence on Central Asia. Zoroastrian sun-worship was not vigorously dissemi-
nated until 250 A. D., when under the Sassanids its priests were stimulated to under-
166 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
take the work of missionaries by the renascence of Iranian life and thought (Vol.
Ill, p. 283); but concurrently Christianity began to enlist supporters (Vol. IV,
p. 212). Neither of these religions was completely victorious until finally Islam
gained the supremacy in one part of that region, while Buddhism, disseminated
from Tibet, held the field in the east. The earlier Buddhism of Eastern Turkestan,
which was directly connected with India, entirely disappeared.
We are tolerably well informed from literary sources as to the religious condi-
tions of Central Asia. Our knowledge has been widened by recent archaeological
investigations in Central Asia, which have yielded a rich harvest of results, notably
in the Tarim basin, and give us a vivid idea of the influence exercised by the various
civilizations and doctrines. The British excavations in the western valley of the
Tarim have brought to light, in addition to Indo-Buddhist, Chinese, and Persian
antiquities and inscriptions, rude copper images, which probably served Shaman-
istic purposes, and may have come from the old civilized province of the Altai,
where Shamanism still exists even at the present day.
(a) Buddhism in Central Asia. — The importance of Buddhism for the west of
Central Asia was chiefly felt before the Mongol period. The activity of Buddhist
missionaries outside the confines of India could not be vigorously exerted until
the new religion had taken firm root in its native country. The period of the
great Asoka (263-226 B. c. ; cf. Section IV of this volume) marks both the victory
of Buddhism in Northern India and the extension of the political and religious
influences toward the northwest. Kashmir, the bridge to Central Asia, recognised
the suzerainty of Asoka. Even if Buddhism was unable to gain a firm footing
there, and was driven to wage frequent struggles with remnants of the old native
snake-worship and a repressed Brahmanism, still access had been obtained to the
civilized oases of the Tarim basin, where the new religion quickly found ready
acceptance.
In externals this Buddhism was, it must be admitted, no result of purely Indian
culture. In the first place, the Iranians had encroached upon India and left traces
of their nationality on the manners and customs of the people ; but after the age of
Alexander the Great an offshoot of Hellenistic civilization existed in Bactria, which
exercised an effective influence on art and culture both in the Tarim basin and in
Northwestern India. Where the missionary zeal of Buddhism appeared at this
time, it was accompanied and permeated by the elements of Greek art. This
Graeco-Buddhist art and culture of Northwest India found a new home in the
Tarim basin. Here, too, the difference between the more ancient western form
of Buddhism and the more modern eastern form, which took its shape in Tibet, is
clearly defined. Generally speaking, Indians of pure race preached the new faith,
and their labours led naturally enough to a wide diffusion of the Indian language ;
since a knowledge of Sanscrit was necessary for the comprehension of the sacred
books. A large non-religious immigration also probably took place.
The influence of India apparently first made itself felt in Khotan, where a son
of Asoka is said to have founded a dynasty. Khotan, owing to its geographical
position, has generally formed the connecting link between Central Asia and India,
and shows in its civilization abundant traces of Indian influences. A large number
of Buddhist shrines and monasteries were to be found in Khotan. The densely
populated oasis, helped by its religious importance, repeatedly obtained great power,
Central Asia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
167
although it could not permanently keep it, since, as the key to the trade route from
India and the southern road from the West to the East, it appeared a valuable
prize to all conquering tribes of Central Asia. From Khotau Buddhism spread
farther over the Tariin basin and its northern boundary. The clearest proof of
this is found in the numerous cave temples constructed on the Indian model, as
well as in the products of Greeco-Buddliist art, which modern explorations have
brought to light, especially in the western part of Eastern Turkestan. It was cer-
tainly the settled portions of the nation, which were steeped in the ancient civili-
zation, that most eagerly adopted this higher form of religion. The nomads were
less satisfied with it The counsellor of a Turkish prince candidly stated his
opinion that neither the building of towns nor of Buddhist temples was advan-
tageous to the nomads, since it was opposed to their traditional mode of life and
would break their spirit This opinion was justified, for in reality it was Buddhism
which, thanks to the crafty support of the Chinese, finally destroyed the savage
bravery of the Central Asiatics.
(b) Zoroastrianism in, Central Asia. — The second great religion, Zoroastrfan-
ism, had naturally its «hief sphere of expansion in Western Turkestan, which
repeatedly stood completely under Iranian influence. Following the line of the
trade routes, which were chiefly frequented by Persian merchants, it forced its way
farther to the East, without being able to win for itself there any considerable posi-
tion as compared with Buddhism. Zoroastrianism spread also among the western
nomads, especially the Scythians of Iranian stock, and left some remarkable traces
behind. The ancient Slavonic mythology, with its contrast between deities of light
and deities of darkness, seems to have been influenced by the Iranian sun-worship ;
so, too, were the ideas of the heathen Turkish tribes on the Altai, according to
which the human race held the middle place between the powers of light and of
darkness. Among several nations, such as the Uigurians, Buddhism and Zoroas-
trianism for a time counterbalanced each other. We cannot now decide whether
their domestic dissensions, which were numerous and important especially among
the Turks, had also a religious tinge.
(c) Christianity in Central Asia. — Even before the Iranian sun-worship
acquired fresh powers of winning adherents at the beginning of the Sassanid
period, the missionaries of Christianity had already traversed Iran and set foot
in Central Asia. The revival of Zoroastrianism must partly be regarded as a
reaction against the irresistible advance of Christianity, so unacceptable to the
true Iranians. It was not indeed the great united Christian Church that broke
•down the Iranian barriers by her emissaries, but a branch separated from the
parent stem, that of the Nestorians (cf. Vol. IV, p. 211). The latter planted the
seeds of Western civilization far away toward the East, but in their isolation they
soon became degenerate, since they were thrown upon their own resources and
•were unable to keep up any constant communications with the West.
The Nestorian Church, nevertheless, attained for a time to great prosperity. At
the commencement of the Mongol period, when the Western Church began to con-
cern herself about her estranged sister in the East, it did not appear hopeless to
think of converting the Mongol rulers, and thus to assure the victory of Christianity
over its rivals, of whom Islam had long been the most dangerous. There were
168 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
Christian communities and even small States with Christian princes in China after
the seventh century. Here lay originally the half-legendary realm of Prester
John, the discovery of which was one of the motives for the Portuguese explora-
tions, until it was thought to have been rediscovered in Abyssinia. Besides the
Nestorians, missionaries of the Manichaeans (see Vol. Ill, p. 284) found their way
to China about the year 1000.
(d) Islam in Central Asia. — The prospects of the older forms of religion in
western Central Asia were completely, even if not immediately, destroyed by the
advance of Islam. It was its appearance late on the scene, full of fresh ideals, that
secured it the victory over the other faiths which were honeycombed by Shamanist
influences and had degenerated in their isolation. In the decisive contest for the
conversion of the Mongolian chieftains, which secured spiritual supremacy for the
successful religion, Islam was finally victorious in the West. The struggle never-
theless lasted for centuries. At the beginning of the eighth century the Arabs had
already become lords of western Central Asia, and had then advanced on their vic-
torious career to the Tarim basin. Khotan, the chief seat of the Buddhists, had
resisted attacks for twenty-five years. Among the inhabitants of Eastern Tur-
kestan the traditions of these religious wars found a concrete expression in the
legendary hero Ordan Padjah, whose marvellous deeds are supposed to have
decided the victory of Islam. The new doctrine did not triumph until, in the
tenth century, Satuk, the Turkish ruler of Kashgar (cf. the explanation of the
plate, p. 158), adopted it, and conquered a large part of the Tarim basin and
even of Western Turkestan. After his death in 1037 the power of the new empire
rapidly diminished. Eeligious differences gradually acquired a certain ethnic im-
portance, even for the nomad tribes of Central Asia. The Turco-Tartar branch now
comprised mainly the Central Asiatics won over for Islam, the Mongolian branch
contained the adherents of the Buddhist creed, while originally both branches were
quite closely related, or, more correctly speaking, were of common origin and only
partially altered by admixture of foreign blood. Among the Uigurians in particular
Islam found at a comparatively early period numerous believers, by the side of
whom, however, the representatives of other religions long maintained their
position.
The mixture of religions, to which, in the West, Hellenic mythology may have
slightly contributed, corresponded to the mixture of civilizations, which found its
most permanent expression in the native script and styles of art. Modern excava-
tions in Turkestan have furnished more exact information on the point, especially
as to the existence of a style which has grown up out of Indian, Greek, and Persian
influences.
If this mixed style betrays the effort made to rise from mere imitation of for-
eign forms to a certain individuality, this tendency appears still more clearly in
the fact that Central Asia produced, in addition to foreign methods of writing,
a large number of peculiar scripts, which were naturally suggested by already
existing models, but nevertheless possess distinctive features of their own (cf. the
explanatory note to the illustration, " The Gate of Kiu-yung kwan "). The Chinese
script seems least of all to have served as a model, since its defects, as contrasted
with the syllabic and alphabetic scripts of the other civilized nations, were too-
THE GATi:
(Drawn by Franz Etzold after Prince Roland Bonaparte, "
U-YUNG KWAN
ts de 1'^poque mongole des XII!" et XI Ve socles," Paris, 1895.)
KXI'LAXATION OF ACCOM PAN YINU ILLUSTBATION
The gate of Kiu-yung kwan (Chu yung ku.au) stands on the road which leads from Peking
in a northwesterly direction to Kalgan and the Great Wall, in the pass of Nan kau between
( 'hang ping and llwai-lai-hsien, and forms part of the outer wall. This gate is celebrated both for
the richness of its decorations, as shown in the accompanying illustration, and for the two long
inscriptions on the two perpendicular inside walls of the archway, which rivet the attention of
linguists. These inscriptions date from the year 1345 A. D. They are composed in six languages,
Sanscrit, Tibetan, Mongolian in the 'Fhags pa character, Uiguriau Turkish, Chinese, and a lan-
guage as yet unknown, which is oidy preserved in this instance. Wylie, who was the first to
attempt the deciphering of this interesting series of inscriptions (187(>)> thought that the mys-
terious dialect was the ya chen or niu tsht of the Kin dynasty (Nu chi) ; (>. Deveria, on the other
hand, supported the view that it was the character of the Tangute tribe, which founded the king-
dom of Hsi Ilsia (Sia hja) on the upper Yellow River, between N. lat. 34° and 42°. The two
inscriptions, in large letters, are abbreviated versions of two mystic prayers (dharsni), on the
cast wall from the Sarwi-durgaii^ncodJiana-iignifta^fhdrant, and on the west wall from the
SdiuicHitet^MMM^frwetM'^^ fUtdmni,
The Chinese and Mongolian text (in the 'Phags pa lama character) lias been translated by Edouard
Chavannes, the Tibetan by Sylvain Levy, the Uigurian by W. Kadloff (1894), and Georg Huth
(1895) has carefully re-examined the Mongolian text and translated it into French ("Journal
Asiatupue ").
Our illustration shows the gate, seen from the west, which was ivstoml in 1445 by Lin P'ou
hien, but has since fallen once more into decay. At the top we see Ganlda above two Nagas with
the tails of snakes. On the lower side to the left, shaded by the tree, is a bas-relief, — an elephant,
mounted by a fantastic form, on whom a small human figure is seated. The narrow strip of orna-
mentation to the left is a chain of vajras. On the inside of the vaulting, which is not shown in
the picture, on the triangular ceiling, a Buddha is seated in each of the inscribed compartments.
On the perpendicular walls there are the two great inscriptions between four Maharajas (Dhrtaras-
tra, playing on a mandolin and companions) as guardians of the gate.
(From a copy in the possession of the editor of the "Documents de 1't'poqiie mongole des XIII' tt XIV"
sieelcs," by Prince Roland Hoiiapurte. Paris, 1395. Privately printed.)
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 169
vividly prominent. The influence of the Indian scripts was greater, especially in
the Tarim basin. On the other hand, the Persian Pehlevi script had been adopted
by the Uigurians, probably through the medium of the Yue tshi, and the Turkish
tribes in their turn learnt it from them. After that, through the influence of the
Nestorian missionaries, the use of the Syrian script was extended, and this soon
served as a model for new native systems (see illustration, p. 158). The Mongols
and the Manchus used varieties of the same script. The number of foreign and
native scripts in Central Asia during the eighth and ninth centuries seems, as
numerous discoveries prove, to have been unusually large. This circumstance
leads us to infer a certain incoherency in the prevailing civilization. The char-
acteristics of the Central Asiatic culture, which was local and at the same time
most susceptible to foreign influences, are also clearly shown in this.
3. CENTRAL ASIA FROM THE MONGOL PERIOD TO MODERN
TIMES
A. GENGHIS KHAN
THE efforts of civilization and religion to tame the barbarous people of Central
Asia had been continued for many centuries. Temples of Buddha, Zoroastrian
seats of culture, Christian churches, and Moslem mosques arose in the oases ; in-
dustries flourished, trade brought foreign merchants into the country, and those
who aimed at a refinement of manners and customs and a nobler standard of life
were amply provided with brilliant models. Of the nomads a less favourable
account must be given ; and yet in many of them the higher forms of religion had
struck root. Skilled writers were to be found among them, and the allurements
of civilized life made considerable impression. The road which was destined to
lead these tribes out of their ancient barbarism had been already often trodden ;
the forces of civilization seemed pressing on victoriously in every direction. The
nomad spirit then once more rallied itself to strike a blow more formidable than
any which had previously fallen. The effort was successful, and as the result of it
a region once prosperous and progressive lay for generations at the mercy of races
whose guiding instincts were the joy of battle and the lust of pillage. The world
glowed with a blood-red light in the Mongol age. Twice, first under Genghis
Khan and his immediate successors, and secondly under Timur, the hordes of
horsemen burst over the civilized countries of Asia and Europe ; twice they swept
on like a storm-cloud, as if they wished to crush every country and convert it into
pasture for their flocks. And so thoroughly was the work of ravage and murder
done, that to the present day desolate tracts show the traces of their destructive
fury. These were the last great eruptions of the Central Asiatic volcano. Civili-
zation conquered, and the hordes of the wide steppes were no longer a danger at
which it needed to tremble.
That which now struck at the civilized world was once more the full power of
the nomads of Central Asia welded together for a time by a master spirit. The
new people which suddenly appeared on the scene, and, although hardly known or
noticed before, now advanced with gigantic armies, in reality dealt only the first
blow, and represented the vanguard of hosts which grew larger and larger, like an
avalanche. The vanguard gave its name to the hosts who followed and rekindled
170 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
in them the wild enthusiasm for war, which had died away, owing to the inter-
course with civilization. But the personality of some individual is always of para-
mount value. The man who feels himself born to rule, and is not prematurely
torn from his heroic path by a harsh fate, may belong to the smallest, most de-
spised, horde, but he will always end as leader of a great people. The tribes of
Central Asia, with their different names but their practically identical manners
and customs, are easily moulded by the iron hand of a ruler into a gigantic national
power. The empires of the steppes do not indeed enjoy a long life, for so soon
as the pressure is relaxed, the enormous fabric breaks up again. Then once more
in the different regions separate nations and empires are formed from the chaotic
confusion of the tribes and men of Central Asia.
(a) The Beginnings of the Mongols. — The Mongols play so small a part in the
earlier history of Central Asia that we may fairly doubt whether in their case we
are dealing with a race whose roots stretch far back into the past. The original
home of the Mongols lay, so far as can be ascertained, on the northern edge of the
Central Asiatic steppe, in the region of Lake Baikal. Now it was this same north-
ern edge which was the scene of the most important nomad States, and was the
true home of the conquering pastoral peoples. It was there that the Huns held
their own until the last, and the centre of the Turkish power lay there. The
nomad population of that region was mainly due to the disruption of the older
nationalities, and contained remnants of all earlier inhabitants. The Mongols in
particular rose from the remains of the Turkish people, which again was a mixture
of Hun and other stocks. It was no mere accident that this people rekindled the
ancient nomad love of war and rapine. In their remote homes they had been the
least softened by civilization or tamed by religious influence, and they had most
loyally preserved their warlike traditions. The longing for plunder and sovereignty
over countless nations had been transmitted to these rude nomads by a long line
of vigorous ancestors. Even the legends of the origin of the Mongolian dynasty,
whether it be traced from a sun-god or from a wolf, are only echoes of earlier
traditions.
The Mongolian horde had begun to make a name for itself in Central Asia at
the commencement of the twelfth century. The conditions of that period were
favourable for its rise, as there was no great power in Central Asia at the time.
The Kin, or Nu chf, who in 1125 had conquered and dislodged the Khitan (Chitan,
Liao), were the most powerful in the eastern parts of the country ; both peoples
were of Tungusian stock, and a part of North China recognised their suzerainty.
The Mongols seem to have been tributary to the Nu chi. In the west the power
of the Hakas had greatly weakened ; the Uigurians and some Tartar hordes, such
as the partially Christianised Kerait (Vol. IV, p. 213), led an independent life.
Yesukai (Yissugay), the father of Genghis Khan, first brought a number of nomad
tribes under his rule, and thus aroused the distrust of the Nu chi, who in 1135,
and again in 1147, made futile efforts to nip in the bud the growing world-power.
(b) Genghis KJian (Temujin). — Little is known of the other exploits of
Yesukai. His empire seemed ready to collapse as quickly as it had arisen. On
Yesukai's death (1175) his son Temujin (in Chinese, T'ie mu ch^n) was only
twenty, or according to some accounts, twelve, years old. This was a sufficient
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 171
reason why the subjugated hordes revolted from him, so that the new ruler, who
was under his mother's guardianship, had scarcely more left him than the original
parent tribe. But an iron will animated the youth. He rallied his adherents and
fought with Ong khan (Wang), the rival ruler chosen by the other hordes, a battle
which at once put an £nd to any further spreading of the revolt, while a year later
he won a brilliant victory over the insurgents, who renewed their attack. He
thoroughly vindicated his power as a monarch by the barbarous punishment of the
rebel leaders. Some tribes now sought the friendship of the conqueror, others
plotted against him or openly attacked him, but, in the midst of unceasing wars,
the power of Temujiu steadily increased. He defeated the Naiman, the Kerait,
who were at first his allies, and other tribes, in a series of campaigns, until in the
year 1206 he was able to hold on the banks of the Onon (a tributary of the
Amur) a great review and council, at which he saw the greater part of the nomad
fighting strength collected round him. Here, at the wish of his followers, he
assumed the name of Genghis Khan (" perfect warrior ; " in Chinese, Ch'eng chi
sze). It now seemed time to adopt a bolder policy and to carry his victorious
arms into the adjoining civilized countries.
A pretext for further wars was afforded by the machinations of the Naiman
prince Kushlek (Gutshluk, K'u ch'u lu), who had dealt the deathblow to the
empire of the Kara Khitai in 1201 ; he was compelled to fly for refuge to the Nu
chi. The Kirghiz, and after them the Uigurians (1209), voluntarily submitted in
the meantime. The war with the Nu chi, after some unimportant skirmishes,
broke out in the year 1211, and in it the Khitan, who had been subjugated by the
Nu chi, lent valuable aid to the Mongols. Genghis Khan's chief object was to
gain possession of Northern China, the best part of the Nu chi Empire. Hsuan
Tsuiig, the emperor of the Nu chi, finally fled to the south, and was thus en-
tirely cut off from his northern resources (1214). Yen King, the capital which
roughly corresponds to the present Peking, now fell into the hands of the Mon-
gols ; but the war only ended in 1234 with the overthrow of the Kin dynasty,
seven years after the death of Genghis Khan (p. 95). It was fortunate for the
Nu chi that they could place in the field against the Mongols the forces of half
China and could fall back on the strongly fortified Chinese towns. The Mongols
learnt gradually in the school of necessity the art of laying siege, in which later
they were destined to perform great feats at the cost of the civilized peoples who
were hard pressed by them. The employment of gunpowder in siege warfare was
already familiar to the Chinese, who could teach many other lessons in this branch
of warfare, where scientific knowledge was more important than impetuous valour.
During the wars between the Mongols and the Nu chi, the Khan Kushlek had
journeyed to Turkestan, had formed an alliance there with Qutb (Ala") ed-dir
Mohammed, the sultan of the Kharismians, and was on the point of building an
empire in western Central Asia with his help. The interference of the Kharis-
mians on behalf of Kushlek may partly be attributed to trade jealousy. Genghis
Khan had certainly tried to bring the trade over the northern roads, but encoun-
tered the distinct opposition of the rulers of Turkestan, of whom the most powerful
was the sultan of Kharismia (Chwarizm). Mohammed, who was master of Kash-
gar, and therefore of the southern roads, had ordered the envoys of Genghis Khan,
who wished to conclude a sort of commercial treaty, to be put to death on the
spot. The prince of Turkestan could not but have been aware of his power. It
172 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
seemed as if the Kharismians would be the successors of the enfeebled Seljuks in
their dominion over Western Asia and in their protectorate over the khalifs of
Bagdad (Vol. Ill, p. 363). As always happens in such cases, a considerable part
of the Kharismian power rested on the wealth which they derived from the posses-
sion of the Central Asiatic and Indian trade roads. .
But now this power, and all the covetous dreams which were connected with
it, received an overwhelming shock by the onslaught of the Mongols. First of all,
Kushlek, who had raised a considerable army, was completely defeated and slain
during the rout (1218). The Mongolian forces then swept on against Kharismia,
which at that time comprised a great portion of Turkestan and Persia, besides the
modern Khiva. Bokhara, the garrison of which offered only a feeble resistance
was plundered and burnt; Otrara, on the middle Syr-Daria, the proper border
fortress facing Central Asia, held out longer, but finally fell into the hands of
Genghis Khan, as did Khojend, Uzgent, and other fortified towns (see map,
p. 123). The main army turned toward Samarkand, which soon surrendered, but
had to pay for the sins of its ruler by a terrible massacre. The resistance of the
sultan Mohammed was now broken ; he did not venture on a battle in the open
field, but fled in Persia from town to town, continually pursued by the Mongolian
troops, only to die at last in misery on an island of the Caspian Sea. The greater
part of Persia submitted to the Mongols (1220). A counter-blow which Moham-
med's son, Jelal ed-din Mankburni, dealt temporarily repulsed the troops of Gen-
ghis Khan. Nevertheless, the appearance of the Mongol sovereign in person forced
the Kharismian to fly to India, upon which various revolted towns, Herat among
them, were relentlessly massacred and burnt. The Mongols pressed on toward the
Indus and laid waste Peshawar, Lahore, and Malikpur.
Thus the old path of conquest to India had been already trodden when Genghis
Khan took the first steps on the beaten road which leads from the plains of West-
ern Siberia to Europe. Pretexts for a campaign, which was first directed against
the nomad tribes in the north of the Caucasus, were soon forthcoming. When,
therefore, the Eussians from Kieff appeared in the field as allies of these peoples,
Mongolian and European troops for the first time faced each other in battle (1233).
The Russians, who were victorious at the outset, were finally beaten, and the
grand duke of Kieff himself was taken prisoner. The Mongols, however, to guard
against whose attacks even Constantinople had been more strongly fortified, did
not follow up their victory.
In the year 1224 Genghis Khan planned a campaign hi person against India,
but was induced by a portent, or more probably by the exhaustion of his war-worn
army, to retire to Karakorum, the former capital of the Christian Kerait, which
had now become the centre of the Mongolian Empire (see map, p. 174). In the
previous year he had organised in the steppe of South Siberia with his whole army
a gigantic battue, an enormously exaggerated example of the method of hunting
familiar to the nomads of Central Asia, both as a sport and as a means of
livelihood.
In the meantime the war in China had continued. Even the West Chinese
Empire of the Hsia, with its partly Tibetan (Tanguse) population, had been
drawn into the whirlpool of war, and had been wasted in the years 1209 and 1217.
Now, after losing its northern province Ordos, it suffered a still more sweeping
devastation at the hands of the Mongols (1223-1226), until in 1227 the last
Central A sia
and Siberia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 173
prince of the dynasty was captured and the country completely conquered by the
generals of Genghis Khan. The Kin, or Nu chi, in Northern China, on the other
hand, still resisted (until 1234) the attacks of the Mongols, whose best general,
Mogli, died in 1225.
Genghis Khan only survived his general two years. He died in 1227 in a
town on the Upper Hoangho ; whether from natural causes or poisoned by one of
his wives is uncertain. With him passed away the most genuine representative of
the wild, untameable nomads of Central Asia, who, in the old Hun fashion, had
built up for himself a giant empire over dead bodies and ruined cities. A thirst
for power and a savage joy in destruction were the guiding motives of his policy.
The need of professing any nobler aims, even as a specious pretext for his cam-
paigns, was absolutely unfelt by him. And yet he was not wanting in those traits
of rough honesty and magnanimity which are redeeming points in the heroes of
nomadism ; indeed, a certain receptivity of civilization is apparent in him. The
lesson which all the savage commanders of Central Asia learned in the end was
destined to be revealed in him, and, above all, in his descendants. Civilization,
down-trodden and bleeding from a thousand wounds, showed itself the stronger in
the spiritual contest, and crushed the obstinate pride of the princes of the steppes,
until at last they humbly did homage in chapels and temples to the ideals of the
civilized world, and painfully accustomed their mail-clad hands to hold the pen.
(c) The Administration of the Empire under Genghis Khan. — It was the suc-
cessors of Genghis Khan who submitted to these influences ; but already by the
side of the gloomy blood-stained figure of the first Mongol monarch a man had
appeared whom the powerful nomad prince seemed to have chosen as a representa-
tive and advocate of civilization. This was Hi chu tsai (Yeliu Chutsai), a scion
of the royal house of the Kin, a Tungusian, and therefore acquainted with Chinese
culture (cf. pp. 94 and 169). The motive that induced Genghis Khan to bring
this member of a hostile family to his court, and soon to entrust him with the
complete internal administration, was certainly less the wish to promote the cul-
ture of his Mongol subjects than the effort to organise his empire, and especially
his revenue, on the model of China. This succeeded so well that Hi chu tsai con-
tinued to hold his high position under the successors of Genghis Khan and until
his death. But it reflects far more honour on him that he regarded himself at the
same time as the advocate of an advanced civilization, that he boldly opposed the
•cruel commands of the monarch, protected the oppressed, and, wherever he could,
preserved the monuments of art from destruction. He devoted his own property
to these objects, or employed it in collecting archives and inscriptions. A number
of these latter and a few musical instruments composed the whole wealth which
he was found to possess, when calumniators suspected his official administration.
In Genghis Khan and his minister we see the embodiment, side by side, of two
great and antagonistic principles, — barbarous despotism and civilized self-restraint.
These two men seem an epitome of the whole history of Central Asia.
It is difficult to ascertain the extent of the Mongol Empire on the death of
Genghis Khan; it was still an incompleted structure (see map, p. 174). The
steppes of Mongolia and Southwest Siberia were the immediate possessions of the
new ruling nation, or were governed, as the country of the Uigurians was, by native
rulers in complete subjection to the conqueror. Turkestan might rank as con-
174 HISTORY OF THE WORLD • [chapter n
quered, whereas in Persia the Mongol power was still insecurely established, and
Northwest India had been raided rather than really subjugated. In China the
eonpire of the Western Hsia was completely annexed ; the Nu chi, on the contrary,
still offered stubborn resistance in the provinces on the Lower Hoangho. The
extent of the Mongol influence toward the south is the most uncertain. No large
campaigns were undertaken in the Tarim basin or in Tibet ; but probably a part at
least of the States in the oases of Eastern Turkestan voluntarily submitted. Many
of these petty States were probably subject to the suzerainty of the Uigurians, the
Kerait, and other nations, and shared their fate ; others, like Kashgar, had been,
already conquered in the wars against the Kharismians.
The constitution of the Mongol Empire was organised throughout on a military
footing, and from this aspect was a mere renewal of the ancient Central Asiatic
system which obtained among the Huns and Turks. All men capable of bearing
arms in the different tribes were enrolled by tens, hundreds, or thousands. The army
recruited its ranks from the young men of the subjugated districts, who were dis-
tributed among the existing troops, or, if the country had voluntarily surrendered,
formed distinct regiments. Standards of yak-tails or horse-tails, of which the most
important were the nine-tailed Mongol ensign and the banner of the Khan made
of four black horse-tails, were equally in accordance with Central Asiatic custom.
The nine-tailed flag denoted the nine great divisions or army corps into which the
Mongolian levies were distributed. Genghis Khan regulated the internal affairs
of his people by a series of laws, most of which were derived from traditions and
earlier precedents and were still suitable to the nomad life. The attitude which
he maintained toward religion is noteworthy. On the one side there is the evident
wish to elevate the traditional Shamanistic creed by laying greater stress on the
belief in the existence of a divine being ; on the other side, it is recommended that
consideration be shown to all other religions and to their priests. Public offices,
however, were not to be entrusted to the priests. Generally speaking, the enact-
ments of Genghis Khan are principally concerned with military matters ; at the
same time they regulate family life in a very simple fashion, define the close time
f )T game, and make universal regulations of certain Mongol customs ; such as, for
instance, the slaughtering of animals by slitting up the body, and the prohibition
of bathing, and so on. In his latter days Genghis Khan displayed some leaning
toward Buddhism, but showed otherwise that indifferent toleration of the various
religions which is everywhere characteristic of the Mongols. Keligious zeal,
the excuse for so many cruelties, never prompted the massacres perpetrated by
Mongols.
B. THE MONGOL EMPIRE DOWN TO ITS PARTITION
THK great nobles of the Mongol Empire met in solemn deliberation in 1227 on
the banks of the river Kerulen (Kyrylun) in the northern steppe. Genghis Khan
by his will had nominated as his successor his third son Ogdai (Ogotai Khan; in
Chinese, Wo k'uo t'ai, or T'ai Tsung), who soon afterward, at a great imperial diet at
Karakorum, received the homage of his subjects. Since Ogdai still conceded con-
siderable powers to Hi chu tsai, his father's first minister, the latter was able to
continue the internal development of the empire, to organise thoroughly the system
of taxation, and to draw up lists of the men liable to military service, thus laying
a firm foundation, which enabled the Mongol monarchs to extract the maximum
THE MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
from K^-l
according to Sdiurty. , v. Spruncr.Drwswi <tf
28 000 nnn° **t,m!S° *P i.y .W^^.-
1 :
*•*•»•*•<•*•* Apprvj-imtitf boundarr of the Mongolian
at the death of Jmyhtx Bian /ZZ7
Boundaw or Atotuimrnrrf's Krn/rfrr Khuaresm before
thf conquest tfr .imijhiji Khan. (1218 - ZO>
ioundarr of Timurs nti/tirr tit his death in HO-;.
(Xyrpt f Kpchak mre suffer* tr> tribute!
I'mler thf mnvtfail of Jenyhix Khii/i .the Monauljan t.'tnpirr
tfftara/ett uito 11 numter of Slates vrttich arr xfunrji in colours
on the Map and remained indipmiient />>/• ijitlrfliiite periods-
- - lm/wrla/it Irnt/e routes
71)
London WV ffeinemajin
Printed bv tin- Bit.li
t Lon"-
ies Inatlha. Leipzig.
UC
Jfew ~Tork:Dod&,Mcad,& Cf
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 175
profit from the subjugated civilized countries without crushing them completely.
The magnificently executed organisation of the Mongol Empire, which at a later
time moved the admiration of Marco Polo, was mainly the work of this minister.
The conquering power of the united nomad peoples made bold advance under
Ogdai. Persia, where the Kharismian Jelal ed-din had recovered a part of his
inheritance (cf. p. 173), was once more subjugated, and the unfortunate prince was
compelled to seek refuge in August, 1231, among the western mountains, where he
was murdered by Kurdish robbers. Ogdai himself directed his attention against
China, where the empire of the Kin (Nu Chi) was struggling for existence with
failing strength. The provinces of Pechili, Shantung, Shansi, and Liautung were
then already in the possession of the Mongols. The Kin held their own only to
the south of the Hoangho in Shensi and Honan. Tuli (Tului, T'olei), the youngest
brother of Ogdai, was commander-in-chief of the Mongols in most of the later
battles. The siege of the capital, Kaifongfu, at which the beleaguered Chinese
employed powder with great effect, was unsuccessfully attempted in the year 1232.
But subsequently an alliance was negotiated between the Mongols and the Chinese
Empire of the southern Sung, which quickly crushed the resistance of the Kin.
In the year 1234 the last emperor of the Nu chi was defeated by a combined army
of Mongols and Chinese. Shensi fell to the Mongols, Honan principally to the
Sung, although misunderstandings already arose between the allies which were
precursors of subsequent events. The conquest of North China was of paramount
importance to the Mongols. Chinese civilization was the first with which they
had any lasting intercourse, and thus the political institutions of China served in
many respects as models for the wild people of the steppes, while the Uigurian
civilization, which had originally been imitated, sank into the background. The
ancient power of China in transforming and absorbing the peoples of the steppe
gradually asserted itself more strongly. The farther the Mongols penetrated into
the Middle Kingdom, the more Chinese they became, until at last the disruption
of the gigantic world-empire into the districts of Central Asia on the one side and
of China on the other was inevitable.
The forces which were set free by the overthrow of the Kin were destined to
extend the Mongol Empire toward the west. The Mongol hordes under the com-
mand of Batu swept on after 1235 against Europe, where the protection of the
frontiers lay in the hands of the Eussian princes. Eiazan was captured on Decem-
ber 21, 1237, and on February 14, 1238, Vladimir fell on the Kliasma. The Eus-
sian chiefs had to submit to the suzerainty of the Mongols, while Kief was
destroyed on December 6, 1240. Poland was now ravaged, Duke Boleslav V, the
Modest (or the Chaste), was forced by Sandomir to take refuge in Hungary, and
a mixed army of Poles and Germans under Henry II of Lower Silesia was anni-
hilated at Liegnitz on April 9, 1241. But there, at the edge of the steppe region,
the western march of Paidar (Peta) and his Mongols ended. They turned to
Hungary, which Batu himself had already invaded (March, 1241). There was
imminent danger that these Mongols would establish themselves firmly in the
Hungarian steppe, and that Hungary would now, as on several previous occasions,
become the nest of predatory swarms of nomads, who would perpetually harass
Europe. The Magyars suffered the very fate which their forefathers had inflicted
on so many prosperous countries. The Mongols seemed, in the summer and autumn
of 1241, to have formed the intention of making room for themselves and of extermi-
176 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
nating the inhabitants. However, on the tidings of the death of the Great Khan
Ogdai, which occurred at Karakorum on December 11, 1241, they resolved, in the
spring of 1242, to withdraw through Kumania to Russia.
The expansive power of the Mongol Empire was even then immense (see
the map, p. 174, "Central Asia in the Times of Genghis Khan and Timur").
While war was being waged in Europe, Ogdai's armies threatened Irak and Asia
Minor. Like Turkish armies earlier and later, the Mongols used the road through
Armenia, and repeatedly attempted to attack Bagdad. Simultaneously there began
in China the attack on the kingdom of the southern Sung, whose princes, in blind
infatuation, had helped to destroy the bulwark of their power, the empire of the Kin.
The troops of the Sung held for a long time the lines of the middle Hoangho and
of the Weiho by dint of hard fighting ; at the same time the contest was raging in
Szechwan on the upper Yangtse Kiang, during which, at the siege of Lu-cheng, a
strong Mongolian army was almost totally destroyed. There also the death of
Ogdai temporarily put an end to the operations.
The Great Khan had bequeathed the empire to one of his grandsons, a minor ;
but in 1241 the first wife of Ogdai, Nai ma chen (Jurakina), usurped the regency in
his place. Hi chu tsai, the aged chancellor of the first two Great Khans, who wished
to secure to the defrauded heir his rights, died suddenly. The empress now suc-
ceeded in carrying at a great kurultai, or imperial diet, the nomination of her son
Kuyuk Khan (Gajuk ; in Chinese, Kuci yu, or Ting Tsung) as sovereign (1246).
Thus ended an interregnum which had greatly impaired the aggressive powers of
the Mongols. It is this which partly explains why in many places, especially
when confronting the western States of Europe, the policy of conquest, notwith-
standing all sorts of threatening preparations, was abandoned. Besides this, envoys
of the pope (p. 98) had appeared at the diet, in order to ask the Mongols to abstain
from further expeditions against the Christians. It is true that they had irritated
the self-conscious sovereigns of a world-empire. Nevertheless the mutual hostility
of the Christians and the Mongols to the Mohammedans seemed to offer the basis for
an understanding, especially in Syria, where Crusaders and Mongols were forced to
stand by one another. Indeed, finally, there appeared some prospect of converting
even the Mongol dynasty to Christianity, and of thus winning a mighty triumph
for the Church.
Kuyuk turned his attention principally to the east and attacked Korea, which
at the same time might form a bridge to Japan. He died, however, in the year 1248,
and Mangu Khan ( Mengko, or Hsien Tsung), a son of Tuli and grandson of Genghis
Khan, came to the throne, although only after long deliberations by the great nobles
(1251). The gigantic extent of the Mongol Empire of that day is shown by the
length of time required to summon and assemble the great councils of the realm.
The decay of the unwieldy structure was only a question of time. Mangu himself
took the first step toward it when he nominated his brother Kublai governor-
general in China (Monan, or " the countries south of the desert"), and thus placed
his destined successor under the immediate influence of Chinese civilization. The
Mongol dynasty was fated to become Chinese at no very distant date.
For the time being, however, the frontiers of the Mongol Empire continued to
expand under Mangu. Tibet, hitherto protected by its situation, was attacked and,
as Marco Polo testifies, was completely devastated. A second advance, under the
leadership of Hulagu against Irak and Syria, was momentous in results. The war
a°] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 177
was first waged with the Assassins, whose eastern or Persian branch was almost
exterminated (Kokn ed-din Chershah, killed on November 19, 1256; see Vol. Ill,
p. 368). The Mongol arms were then turned against Bagdad, which the feeble
resistance of the ruling khalif failed to save. A frightful massacre almost extermi-
nated the whole population of this religious capital of the Islam world. The hos-
tility then evinced by the Mongols to the Mohammedan faith strengthened the hope
that the Mongols would let themselves be won over to Christianity. Christians did,
indeed, obtain a favoured position at the Great Khan's court ; but Mangu regarded
baptism and other rites merely as a sort of convenient magic formula. The
behaviour of the unorthodox Nestorian and Armenian priests could not but confirm
him in this belief. The Mongol princes must have had very hazy notions as to the
inner meaning of the various religions, the ceremonies of which they occasionally
observed.
After a great part of Syria and Asia Minor had been ravaged, the attention of the
Mongol sovereign was once more directed to the dominions of the southern Sung,
which were now vigorously attacked for some successive years. Kublai, who had
satisfactorily averted the disfavour which threatened him, conquered the western
borderlands of the Chinese Empire, Szechwan and Yunnan, and, by advancing his
armies as far as Tongking and Cochin China, surrounded Southern China on all
sides. Once more the death of the Great Khan temporarily brought the operations
to a standstill. Mangu died in the year 1259, and all the Mongol leaders went off
to the Tartar steppe to attend the imperial diet.
G. THE FALL OF THE MONGOL WOKLD-EMPIEE
(a) The Beginning of the Fall. — The fall of the gigantic empire could no
longer be delayed. It was not merely due to the enormous size of the Mongol
State, and the impossibility of preserving the unity of the realm in the face of such
immense distances. Still more destructive was the influence of the different civil-
izations which everywhere forced their way, as it were, through the layer of sand
spread over them by the storm-wind of the desert: a spiritual revolution was
at work.
If Kublai was on the point of being transformed into a civilized Chinese, the
western governors felt themselves surrounded by the civilizations of Western Asia
and Europe, while the ancient and genuine Mongol spirit in its primitive bar-
barism was only to be found in the steppes of Central Asia. The force of the
geographical position, which had first called to life the earlier States and civiliza-
tions, made itself again irresistibly felt ; out of the provinces of the Mongol world-
empire were formed once more national States under the rule of dynasties of
Mongol origin. The way in which the fall would take place depended on the
point to which the centre of gravity of the empire was shifted. If toward the
east, then the west at once wrested itself free ; if toward the civilized countries of
the west, it was a natural consequence that China should attain independence
under a Mongol ruler.
In 1260 the choice of the Mongols fell on Kublai Khan (Chinese, H'u pi lie,
Shi Tsu, or Wen wu Huang ti) ; by this election the centre of gravity was shifted
toward the east. Kublai still indeed was reckoned the supreme lord of all Mon-
gols ; but in truth he ruled only the eastern steppe-districts of Central Asia and
VOL II — 12
178 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
the parts of China hitherto conquered. Iran and the possessions in Syria and
Asia Minor fell to his brother Hulagu ; in Kipchak, the steppe country of West
Siberia and the adjoining European regions, the descendants of Batu ruled, and
other Mongol dynasties were being formed in Turkestan.
Chinese civilization now triumphed in the main eastern empire. What con-
quering energy still existed among the Mongol people was employed on the subju-
gation of the empire of the southern Sung and on futile attacks against Japan, after
the disorders in Mongolia which followed on the change of sovereigns had been
quieted. Serious operations against the Sung were not commenced until the year
1267, and twelve years elapsed before the final resistance of the Southern Chinese
was ended. But while Kublai thus won the dominion over the whole of China, he
was threatened by the danger of losing his possessions in Central Asia through
rebellious Mongol princes. At Karakorum, in the years 1260 to 1264 appeared a
rival emperor, Alipuko, or Arikbuga. A grandson of Ogdai, Kaidu by name,
rebelled, and held out till his death in 1301. Baian, however, to whom the victory
over the Sung is chiefly to be ascribed, brought Mongolia, with the old capital
Karakorurn, once more into the possession of his master. Kublai himself resided
from the first in Peking (Khan Baligh, Cambaluc, p. 98), and thus announced
that he was more Chinese than Mongol. The histories of China have recognised
this fact, since, after 1280, they treat the Mongol reigning house of Kublai as
a genuine Chinese dynasty. The further destinies of this dynasty accordingly
belong to the history of Central Asia in a very restricted degree, especially after
the death of Kublai (1294), whose name had testified to some sort of imaginary
cohesion between the various fragments of the Mongol Empire still.
Any one who has tried to pass a fair judgment on the crumbling world-empire,
and asks what its effect on the civilization of mankind was, will, as he turns over
the records of that blood-stained period, be filled first with a feeling of abhorrence,
and of despair of any progress or of any results of higher culture. Is it always
the destiny of the nations which are laboriously struggling forward to succumb to
the onslaught of rude barbarians, whose dull senses are intoxicated with battle and
booty until they are maddened with an aimless and hideous lust for murder?
Have flourishing towns, filled with the products of art and science, been raised by
the energy of successive generations merely that rude hordes may stamp them into
the blood-stained earth, as a wanton child breaks his toy from a senseless love of
destruction ? True it is that on no page of history does the old cruelty of nature
and destiny, that cruelty which sacrifices a thousand lives in order to preserve a
few favoured individuals, stare us so derisively in the face. If countless multi-
tudes of sentient men bleed to death under the sabres of the nomads, it seems to
look on with as great indifference as if a swarm of hovering flies was consumed by
the flames of a desert fire.
But it has been already stated that counter influences to all that evil and mis-
chief existed which were able to mitigate the terrible impression. The storm did
not only wreak destruction, but it purified the atmosphere. It was the Mongols
who first put an end to the sect of murderers, the Assassins, — a conspicuous but not
an isolated example of this purifying power. Far higher value must be attached
to the fact that once again, although for a brief period and under the supreme com-
mand of a barbarous people, all the civilized countries of the Old World enjoyed
free intercourse with each other ; all the roads were temporarily open, and repre-
Central ^4.ti'a"|
nnd Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
179
eentatives of every nation appeared at the court of Karakorum. Chinese artisans
were settled there ; Persian and Armenian merchants met the envoys of the pope
and other Western powers ; a goldsmith from Paris (p. 99) constructed for Mangu
the chief ornament of his court, a silver tree ; there were numerous Arabs in the
service of the khan, and Buddhist priests laid the civilization of India at his feet.
These representatives of different civilizations must have reacted on each other.
For the isolated kingdom of China in particular the Mongol age marked the influx
of new and stimulating ideas (see the plate, p. 168). Arabian writings were
frequently translated into Chinese; Persian astronomers and mathematicians came
into the country ; daring European travellers also found many opportunities to
communicate their knowledge. The keen zest for learning exhibited by the better
part of the Mongols seemed to communicate itself to the Chinese, and for a period
to overcome the stiff conservatism of the old self-centred civilized nation.
(J) The Western Sections of the Divided Empire}- — While the history of the
Eastern Mongol Empire was gradually becoming a chapter of Chinese history, an
Iranian State was developing in the west with a Mongol dynasty, which it is usual
henceforth to designate as the dynasty of the Ilkhans. Hulagu, who in Mangu's
time had consolidated the conquest in Persia and had added other parts of West-
ern Asia to them, must be reckoned as an independent sovereign after the acces-
sion of Kublai, although a semblance of dependence was preserved. After the
capture of Bagdad, Hulagu had conquered some of the petty Mohammedan princes,
and thus put himself on good terms with the Christians in Armenia and Palestine.
But when an Egyptian army inflicted a heavy defeat on his general, Ketboga, not
far from Tiberias, the Mongol advance was checked in that direction also (1260).
The attempts of Hulagu to reconquer Syria led to frightful massacres, but had not
been crowned with any real success when Hulagu died, 1265.
His successor, Abaka (Abaga), was in consequence restricted to Persia and Irak,
thus realising the idea of an Iranian empire under a Mongol dynasty (Vol. Ill,
p. 371). The irony of fate willed that Abaka was forced immediately, according to
Temujin (Genghis Khan, 120G-1227)
1
Juji (t 1220)
Jagatai,
Ogdai,
Tuli
Orda, Batu,
Khan of Khan of
East Kipchak
Kipchak 1226-56
1226-80 |
Khans of
Khans of the Golden
the White Horde, or
Horde more accu-
1280-1391 rately of
1
Shaiban, Teval, Tuka
King of Chief of the Kh
Hungary Petschenegs G
1241/42 | Bui
Khan of the Nogai-Chiefs
Kirghiz and and Khans
Uzbegs of Siberia
1242 h-
Khan of
Timur, Trans-
m of oxania
•eat 1227^2
garia |
Khans
of
Trans-
| oxania
S g 1242 to
a _g 1358
Great Khan
1229-41
Kuyuk Koshi
Great |
Khan Kaidu
1246-48 flSOl
Mangu Kublai Arik- Hulagu
Great Great buga Il-Khan
Khan Khan Rival- of
1251-59 1200-94 Khan Persia
| at 1256-65
Yuan- Kara- |
dynas- korum 11
tyin 1260- Khans
China 1264 of
1271- Persia
a Khans of Bok- {* ,3 o
the Blue
gn hara 1500-1868: 2g *£
|te5*
1368 1265-
Horde
1256 to 1359
=> >a Shaibanids 1500- ii S o ^ .
H ^ 1599 ; in the +*<& g §
'HI
| 1349
Great Khans in
1 " — ~~1
•g^1 female line the °3 S1"1
3-* •gS
Mongolia
Khans of the
i|| Janids 1599-1785 SH, «
1" °°
1370 to 1470
'2 § Golden Horde (II)
and the j2 3
3 §
I
0 J5 in Western K.ip-
£ Mangites [^ -2 1
< fl
Provincial
•g ,i chak 1378-1502
1785-1868 (see |
H
Princes
ol ^
under Orda) jj
1544-1634
o r" Khans of Astra-
5
^ chan 1466-1554
Janids of Trans-
oxania 1599-1785
i
1
Mangites of
^Bokhara 1785-1868
(Principally from Stanley Lane-Poole, " The MDhimmadin Dynasties; " Westminster, 1894.)
180 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
the old Iranian policy, to take measures for protecting his realm against his own
countrymen, the Mongols of Kipchak, who threatened to invade the land through the
Caucasian Gate from Derhend, and had already come to an understanding with
the Egyptians, the arch foes of Abaka. Nothing shows more clearly how complete
the fall of the Mongol Empire then was. War now began on the other frontier of
Iran, toward Turkestan, which had long been threatened, since the Mongols of
Jagatai invaded Khorasan, and were only driven out of Persia by Abaka's victory
at Herat. A final attempt to recover Syria ended, however, in the defeat of Abaka
at Emesa (1281). In that same year Abaka died, and with his successor the trans-
formation of the dynasty seemed to be completed. The prince, originally a bap-
tised Christian, and brother of the deceased, openly adopted the Mohammedan
religion under the name of Ahmed, and thus snapped the last bond of union with
his unruly Central Asiatic brethren. This step was, however, premature. The
Christians of Armenia and Georgia, the mainstay of the empire, were roused to
ominous excitement, and the Mongols could not make up their minds so quickly to
abandon their hatred of Islam and its followers. ^Rebellions ensued, the leaders of
which called in the help of the far-off Great Khan, Kublai. Ahmed was deposed,
and his nephew Argun gained the sovereignty. Then followed a period of dis-
turbances and renewed fighting in Syria, which was favourable to the Mongols,
especially in the time of the Ilkhan Ghazan (1295-1304), but ended later in
repeated disasters. Under Ghazan, who henceforward helped Islam to victory, the
empire of the Ilkhans temporarily acquired new power ; but a reconciliation with
the Mohammedan world was not effected, and the zeal of the Christians for the
Mongol dynasty soon cooled.
Under the successors of Ghazan the empire became disorganised, but the sem-
blance at least of unity was kept up until the death of the Ilkhan Abu Said Baha-
dur (1335). The disruption then began which repeated on a small scale the fate
of the Mongolian world-empire. The provinces became independent, and the
Ilkhan retained a mere shadow of dignity without any real power. In 1336 round
Bagdad, under sheikh Hasan Busurg (d. 1356), the emir of the Jelair, was formed
the empire of the Ilkhani, which acquired fresh power, but finally was destroyed
in the struggle with the Mozaffarids and Timur (1393-1405). In 1410 died the
last of the Ilkhani but one, Ahmed ben Owais, as a prisoner of the Turcoman
prince Kara Yusuf (Vol. Ill, p. 376).
The dynasties which had been formed in the steppe regions of West Siberia and
Turkestan were better able to maintain their individuality than the Mongol princes
of China and Iran ; it was from these districts that the second great advance of
the Mongols under Timur started. In Turkestan arose the empire of Jagatai
(Zagatai, Mawaral-nahr — Transoxauia), which took its name from one of the sons
of Genghis Khan, and at the time of its greatest prosperity comprised all the coun-
tries on the Oxus and Jaxartes, as well as the greatest part of the Tarim basin.
The prevailing religion in these regions was Islam ; sectarians of that faith had
there offered the Mongols in 1232 a more obstinate resistance than the native
princes had previously done. At an early period one of the Mongol sovereigns
had gone over to the teaching of Mahomet, although the bulk of the people
had not followed his example. Since there were no external enemies left, the
natural effect was that the Mongols soon fought among -themselves. Disputes as
to the succession, and rebellions were endless; the legitimate reigning dynasty
i
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 181
of the line of Genghis Khan sank into the background after 1358, and a govern-
ment by a mayor of the palace took its place, which obviously could not remain
uncontested in the hands of any one family. Some provinces became absolutely
independent ; for example, Kashgar, which was the most powerful State in those
parts in 1369, when Timur first appeared on the scene. The Mongolian dynasty
of the Shaibanids, though temporarily overthrown, did not disappear, but after
the fall of Timur's dynasty (1494) soon raised itself again to the throne of
Samarkand and Bokhara, which it held in the male line until 1599, and in the
female until 1868.
Tha kingdom of Kipchak (the Golden Horde), which, roughly speaking, com-
prised the lowlands of Western Siberia and Eastern Europe, showed greater
stability than the Jagatai. A more vigorous foreign policy was both possiblo
and necessary thers, ^nd helped to bind the Mongols closely together. The com-
mand of Russia, that land of constant ferment, the wars with Poland and Byzan-
tium, and the raids over the Caucasus into Western Asia, kept alive the old warlike
ardour of the conquest-loving nation. The countries which later formed the king-
dom of Kipchak were first partially subdued by Juji (Tuschi), the eldest son of
Genghis Khan, and then were completely brought under the dominion of the Mon-
gols by Batu (see preceding genealogical table). The expedition of Batu to Cen-
tral Europe ended the period of great conquests in ^he wsst. The Mongols were
unable to hold their position in Hungary and Poland, which were both attacked
again in 1254, and Russia alone remained completely in their hands. Batu, who
died in 1256, had been practically an independent ruler. He was succeeded, with-
out opposition from the Great Khan, Kublai, by his younger brother Berkai (Bereke,
Baraka, Burka), who was soon involved in contests with the Iranian sovereign of
the Mongols, Abaka. The highest civilization in the kingdom of Kipchak was
then found in the Crimea. The towns of the Crimea had flourished since ancient
times, and had increased in prosperity under the Mongols ; the country had main-
tained its intercourse with Byzantium and Southern Europe. The influence of
this advanced culture was noticeable in the Mongolian princes. Many of them, in
spite of their soldier-like roughness, appreciated scientific pursuits, tried to draw
learned men to their court, and showed toward the representatives of the different
religions that tolerance which is perhaps the most pleasing trait in the Mongol
character. It must be admitted that the hopes which were so often entertained of
winning the Mongolian princes completely over to one definite religion were long
unrealised.
The history of the kingdom of Kipchak is full of constant wars against all
neighbours on the west and the south, and of dynastic disputes and insurrections
at home. Part of it belongs to the course of Russian history (Vol. V). The Mon-
gol age does not imply for Russia a brief and bloody interlude, as it does for most
other Western countries ; on the contrary, the nomads of the steppes seem for a
time to have associated so much with the native population that at the present
day indelible traces of that affinity are left on the national Russian character.
A still closer amalgamation was partly prevented by the circumstance that finally
the dynasty of Kipchak in the time of Uzbeg (Usbek; 1312-1340) went over to
Islam, and thus repelled the Christian Russians in the same way as the Persian
Mongols offended the Armenians and Georgians. After 1360 the kingdom was
filled with disturbances, and it was only the union of the White and the Blue
182 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapterii
Hordes by Toktamish (1378) and the invasion of Timur (1391 and 1395) that
temporarily restored order, but with the result that, after the death of Toktamish
in 1406, the disorders increased and the power of the kingdom continually dimin-
ished. In the fifteenth century the Crimea, with the adjoining parts of Southern
Eussia, was all that remained of the once mighty realm of Kipchak. In the year
1502 the " Golden Horde " died out, and the kingdom completely broke up.
The Nogai, a branch of the Mongol Jujis, formed in 1466 a kingdom round
Astrakhan, which fell before the attacks of the grand duke of Moscow. Farther
to the north arose in 1438 the Khanate of Kasan, and in the Crimea a small Mon-
gol State, founded in 1420 with the help of Turkey, to which it agreed to pay
tribute, held its own until its incorporation with Eussia in the year 1783.
D. TIMUR (TAMEELANE)
WITH the fall of the Mongol Empire in the time of Kublai the era of the great
conquests was virtually closed, although raids and border wars still lasted for ai
long time. The subjugation of Southern China brought the eastern Mongols com-
pletely under the influence of Chinese civilization. The more westerly of the
Mongol States did not show any further power of similar expansion. The most
striking proof of this stagnation is the fact that no attempt was made to conquer
India, although the gates to this country, so alluring to every great Asiatic con-
queror, were in Mongol hands, and although the Mongols had already traversed the
Punjab in the time of Genghis Khan. A fresh and powerful impulse, which united
a part of the ancient Mongol power once more under one ruler, was needed in order
to reach this last goal.
(a) The Beginning of Timur's Career. — It seems at first sight strange that the
new tide of conquest flowed from Turkestan, from the kingdom of Jagatai (Zagatai),
that is to say, from the Mongol State which was most rent by internal wars and
showed the least energetic foreign policy. But these dissensions were actually a
proof that the ancient Mongol love of fighting was all-powerful there, and that
the forces and impulses of nomadism had remained there unimpaired. The nomad
tribes of Turkestan, who were only superficially Mongolian, and whor long before
the time of Genghis Khan, had repeatedly made victorious inroads into Iran and
India, supplied the most splendid material to a leader who knew how to mould
them into a loyal and devoted army. While Mongolia proper, which had spread
its armies over half the globe, was now poor in men and no longer a theatre for
great enterprises, Turkestan had every claim to become the foremost power of the
nomad world. All that was required was a master will.
Civilization may have tried her arts on the forefathers of Timur, that true child
of the desert, who was born, the son of a Mongol general, on April 8, 1336. They
had lived for some hundred years or so as the feudal lords of the small district of
Kash (Shaar, Shehrisebs), in the very heart of the civilized world of Turkestan,
to the south of the prosperous town of Samarkand. But Timur's character shows
barely a trace of these influences. In his relations to his native soil he is true to
the nomad bent. The little country of Kash served him indeed as a starting-point
for his first operations, but he soon shook himself free from it, and fought like a
soldier of fortune whose true home is among the moving tents of his camp, — who
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 183
to-day has under him a mighty army recruited or impressed from every nation,
and to-morrow with a few faithful followers is seeking a precarious refuge in the
mountain gorges or the desert. The vivid contrasts, so usual among nomads, be-
tween harshness and magnanimity, between cruel contempt for the life of strangers
and desperate grief for his kinsmen and his friends, are repeated in Timur. Like
a true Mongol, he was indifferent in religious questions ; but — and this one evil
trait he learnt from the civilized peoples — he could play the Mohammedan
fanatic when it served his purpose. He knew how to disguise his warlike expedi-
tions, occasionally under a specious veil of piety.
In the year 1358 the realm of Jagatai was in the most desperate disorder. The
khan, Buyan Kuli, had become a mere puppet in the hands of his mayors of the
palace ; but even the family which ruled in his place saw itself in this same year
deprived of all influence by a general revolt of the vassal princes, and the kingdom
broke up into its separate provinces. In the wars which these new principalities
continually waged on one another, Qutb ed-din Amir Timur, as a nephew of the
reigning prince of Kash, found opportunities of gaining distinction, and used them
to the full. The first attempts to reconstitute the State under a different rule,
started in Kashgar, the prince of which, Toghluq Timur (descended from Jagatai
in the sixth degree), appears to have extended his influence as far as the Altai Moun-
tains. In the years 1359 and 1360 the armies of Kashgar advanced victoriously to
Western Turkestan ; Timur found it politic to join them, and he contrived that
after the fall of his uncle the principality of Kash should come to his share. But
it must have soon been obvious that there was not much to gain in this way. He
soon reappeared in the field, but this time as an ally of the emir Hosain, who, as
a descendant of the family of the Mayors of the Palace, had held out in Kabul
and now reasserted his claims to the supreme power. In the year 1360 the two
allies experienced the most strange vicissitudes, being at one time victors, at another
fugitives and even prisoners. But after years of fighting, fortune inclined to their
side; a change of sovereign in Kashgar gave them breathing time, and in 1363
they were able to enthrone as khan at Samarkand a new puppet of the family of
Jagatai, Kabul Sultan. It is not surprising that Timur now tried to put aside his
overlord Hosain ; but he met with an overwhelming defeat in 1366. He con-
trived, however, to obtain the forgiveness of Hosain in 1367 and to regain his
influence. After better preparations, his attempt succeeded in 1369. Hosain was
captured and executed, and a council of the realm nominated Timur to be supreme
Great Khan (Cha Khan). The nominal sovereignty of the descendants of Genghis
Khan was not terminated for some time. Suyurghatmish was succeeded in 1388—
1397 by his son Mahmud as khan of Transoxania.
(b) Timur's Campaigns. — The new " Lord of the World " began with West
Turkestan for his sole possession, and even of that territory parts remained to be
conquered. Yusuf Beg of Kharismia, which then comprised Khiva and Bokhara,
defied Timur continually, and was not completely defeated until 1379. Kamar
ed-din of Kashgar, in spite of repeated campaigns (1375-1376), could never be
completely vanquished. It was only when West Turkestan was entirely subju-
gated that the great wars and raids of Timur, fraught with such consequences for
civilization, began with an attack on Persia, which then, like Jagatai at an earlier
time, was broken up into several independent principalities. The separate States
184 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
could not resist the united power of Turkestan. Khorasan (with the last Serbedarid
Ali Muaggad) and Herat (with the last Kurtid Ghagath ed-diii Pir Ali), the ancient
bulwarks of Iran against the nomads, were the first to suecuob before the attack
of Timur (1381). In the years 1386-1387 the Mongolian army fought with
Armenia, the Turkomans, and the Ilkhani (Jelairs) of Bagdad. The year 1388
saw the terrible overthrow of the Iranian national States of the Mozaffarids, which
had been formed in Farsistan (the ancient Persis), Kirman, and Kurdistan, and the
complete destruction of Ispahan, the capital of Persia. The invasion of Turkestan
by the ungrateful Khan Toktamish of Kipchak called Timur away from Persia in
1388-1391. He was then completely occupied with the subjugation of the Tarim
basin. In 1392 he reappeared in Persia and laid the country waste, since most
of the dethroned princes, even the Mozaffarids, had partially regained their domin-
ions. The race of the Mozaffarids was this time exterminated. In 1393 Armenia
and Kurdistan were occupied once more.
It was most unfortunate for the subjugated countries that Timur by his love of
conquest was always allured from vanquished regions to other parts of his territories.
The native princes then found opportunities to recover their dominions for a time ;
whereupon Timur would retaliate. Timur's imagination revelled in horrors ; he
aimed at striking terror far and wide. He delighted in raising towers of skulls or
building gigantic monuments of corpses and living prisoners.
A momentous campaign in India called Timur away from Persia on this par-
ticular occasion. The influence of the Mongols seems to have been asserted here
and there in Northern India on the east side of the Indus. Independent border-
tribes impeded, as now, the communications between Afghanistan and the valley
-of the Indus. Beyond the Indus lay Mohammedan States. In 1398 part of the
border-tribes were conquered after a laborious campaign under the personal com-
mand of Timur. Meanwhile a grandson of Timur, Pir Mohammed, captured
Multan after a six months' siege, and the combined forces then advanced before
Delhi. The city fell into the hands of Timur after a bloody battle. The con-
queror then marched beyond the Ganges, and returned to Samarkand in 1399
laden with immense booty.
The attacks on the West were now at once renewed. In 1399 Timur was in
Georgia, which he cruelly devastated; but his looks were already fixed on Asia
Minor, where the Osmans had founded their empire, and on Syria, which was under
Egyptian rule. The Osman war began in the year 1400 with the siege of the city
of Sivas, which resisted so long that Timur after taking it desisted for the time from
further operations in that quarter. He advanced, instead, against the feebly defended
Syria, the northern part of which, including Damascus, fell into his hands. Bagdad
also, where Ahmed ibn Owais had established himself, was captured. The storm
then broke on the heads of the Osmans. In the middle of 1402, the Turkish army
was defeated near Angora by the forces of Timur. Sultan Bajazet I himself was
taken prisoner, and Asia Minor totally laid waste. Faraj of Egypt, who feared a
similar fate, acknowledged the supremacy of Timur.
Thus the " lame " Timur (Timur-i-leng, Timur-lenk = Tamerlan) had again
united the three chief western portions of the Mongol world-empire, Jagatai,
Kipchak, and Persia, and widened their frontiers still more (see the map, " Cen-
tral Asia in the Times of Genghis Khan and Timur," p. 174). When lie once
more convened a great council of the realm at Samarkand in the year 1404, he
Mosque of Gur-Amir, Samarkand, containing Tomb of Timur
Tomb of Timur
TIMUR'S BURIAL PLACE
EXPLANATION OF THE VIEWS ON THE FRONT OF THE PAGE
Top : The mosque of Gur-Amir at Samarkand, containing the tomb of Timur. The imposing
building with its dome of tiles, which have preserved their splendid glaze, its lofty facades and
broad gateways, dates from the period of the Mongolian conqueror, who made Samarkand his
capital about 1400.
Bottom: The tomb of Timur and his relations, under the dome of the mosque of CJur Amir at
Samarkand. The black stone with a crack in the middle is the tomb of the conqueror. It is a
single block, hewn out of dark green jade, and of incalculable value. The slab has been broken
across by some unknown hand. Superstitious Mohammedans (who consider the splinters to be
infallible remedies against all internal diseases) and Russian collectors have knocked off pieces
of it. According to the St. Petersburg correspondent of the " Daily Chronicle," the tomb was
plundered by robbers in October, 1901. They not only destroyed the priceless stone of Timur,
but carried off all the valuables from the mosque, which, notwithstanding its interesting inscrip-
tions, was left unguarded.
(Mostly from Franz v. Schwarz's " Turkestan." Freiburg iiu Breisgau, Herder, 1900.)
Central Asia
•and Siberia,
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
explained to his magnates that only one great undertaking was left him, the con-
quest of China. But this time a kindly fate spared the prosperous Chinese
Empire. An army of two hundred thousand men was already in the field, when
death cut short his plans on February 18. He died of fever at the age of sixty-
nine years (see the inserted illustration, " The Gur-Amir Mosque in Samarkand,
with the Tomb of Timur ").1 The spirit of boundless ambition and conquest was
once more embodied in him ; but it died with him, and the down-trodden seeds of
culture were free to spring up again if life was still in them. The age of the
great nomad empires definitely closed with Timur, but not before it had pro-
duced endless misery and had rent the ancient civilization of Western Asia to
a few shreds.
Timur's empire had been only held together by the personality of the ruler, and
it crumbled away even in his hands so soon as his attention was too closely riveted
in any 0113 direction. The term " empire " is almost too pretentious for this polit-
ical structure which merits rather the name of military despotism. The national
basis was almost entirely replaced by the purely military. The body that took the
field was not a levy from defined districts, but the recruited or impressed followers
of the individual leaders. Every campaign was an undertaking at the common
•cost, the supreme command being in the hands of Timur. The troops were not
paid by Timur, but by the generals, who looked to recoup themselves with interest.
If by so doing they amassed exc3ssrre wealth, Timur simply ordained that all sec-
tions of the army should be strengthened. Every leader then was forced to employ
his fortune in enlisting more soldiers. Such an army could naturally only be kept
on foot so long as it was fighting. It would soon have eaten itself away in peace
time. Thus behind Timur's unbridled lust for war, which entirely corresponded to
his character, there was a compelling force from which he could not, with safety
to himself, withdraw. He possessed an army ready to hand only so long as he
waged war and obtained booty, and, as long only as this army remained loyal to
him, he was lord of a gigantic empire. He was confronted by the national rulers,
whose existence was more firmly rooted in the soil, but who were seldom able to
face the rushing torrent of his enormous hosts.
E. THE DESCENDANTS OF TIMUK
WITH the death of Timur these opposing forces were certain soon to regain the
upper hand. No course was left to the descendants of the mighty conqueror but
to submit to them or to give a national tinge to their own policy, a course for
which the earlier Mongol dynasties furnished a precedent. For the moment,
indeed, the army, the invincible weapon of Timur, was still available, and its
leaders were ready to continue the previous system, although there was no longer
a master mind to lead them. Above all it was intended that the expedition against
China, which promised such ample booty, should be intrusted to a board of gen-
erals and the question as to Timur's successor left temporarily in abeyance. But
1 The tombstone of Timur, 6 feet 6 inches long, 15 inches broad, and 12 inches high, is engraved
ivith his genealogy. According to C. C. Dukmeyer, it is made of two differently veined stones so accu-
rately fitted together that it has been supposed to be a shattered monolith (cf. the description of the
illustration). At the head of the stones the flags of the conqueror and the horse tails are suspended from
a high pole. His bones repose in the vault beneath, exactly under the nephrite, covered by heavy black
marble.
186 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
the dispute about the inheritance, which at once broke out, brought these plans to
an abrupt close.
The wars about the succession lasted four years. At first it seemed as if
Timur's grandson, Khalil, would inherit the empire ; but Shah Kuch (Eoch), a son
of the conqueror, born in 1378, asserted his claim in Persia. In 1409 the well-
meaning and peaceful Khalil was deposed, and Timur's empire, which already
seemed likely to break up into the two States of Turkestan and Persia, was again
united under Shah Euch. But it was no longer the old empire. The larger States,
which had outwardly submitted to the scimitar of the lord of the world, Kipchak,
Egypt, the Osman empire, the Turkoman States of Armenia, and the majority of
the Indian possessions, were irreprievably lost now that Timur was dead. Only
West Turkestan, the Iranian highlands, and a part of the Punjab were still
retained by his successors. Shah Euch was not the man to contemplate a con-
tinuance of the old policy of war and conquest. The only recourse left to him
was to bring the national forces of his States into his service ; in other words, to
recognise the Iranian people with their culture and to help them. It was chiefly
due to the prudence with which he pursued this object that he was able to main-
tain the remnant of the empire for many years until his death (April, 1447).
His arch-foes were the Turkomans (Vol. Ill, p. 371) in Armenia and Azerbijan,
wild hordes of Central Asiatic nomads, who had planted themselves there on the
old military route of the Turkish and Mongol invaders and had formed a predatory
State in the old Hun style. There were fragments of all the migratory tribes,
who at one time were divided by internecine feuds, at another were united into a
formidable military power by the prospect of booty.
The headship of the hordes rested at first with the Turkoman tribe of the
" Black Sheep " (Kara Koinlo) under its chief Kara Yusuf, who brought Mesopo-
tamia and Bagdad into his power, and gravely menaced Persia. The sudden death
of Kara Yusuf (1420) freed Shah Euch from his most formidable antagonist.
Azerbijan was now definitely taken from the Turkomans.
But any hope that the Iranised House of Timur would retain Persia and Tur-
kestan at least was ended by the disorders ensuing on the death of Shah Euch.
A stormy period, in which parricide and fratricide were not infrequent, shook the
empire for years, and while the descendants of Timur tried to exterminate each
other, the swarms of Turkomans, at whose head the horde of the " White Sheep "
(Ak Koinlo) now stood, poured afresh over the Persian frontier. Abul Kasim
Barbar Bahadur, a grandson of Shah Euch, held his own in Khorasan until 1457 ;
then, while West Persia was already lost to the Turkomans, Sultan Abu Said, a
grandnephew of Shah Euch, usurped the power (1459). But in the year 1467 he
found himself forced to fight with Uzun Hasan, the leader of the Ak Koinlo. The
heir of Timur was defeated and killed (1468); the larger part of his Persian pos-
sessions fell to the Turkoman. Complete disorder then reigned in Turkestan, until
hi 1500 Mohammed Shaibani (of the family of Genghis Khan; cf. ante), and
his Uzbegs, who represented the nomad spirit as modified by Iranian civilization,
became masters of the country. The Uzbeg dynasties of the Shaibanids, Janids,
and Mangites possessed down to 1868 the various kingdoms, into which the country
again broke up almost precisely as before the Mongol age.
A Timurid dynasty had held its own in Ferghana. Driven thence by the Uzbeg
leader Shaibek Khan, the ruling prince Zehir ed-din Babar, grandson of Abu Said
Central A.sia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
187
(born 1483), threw himself into the mountains of Afghanistan, where he com-
manded the gates to India. The old conquest-loving spirit of his ancestor awoke
in Babar, whom the splendid triumphs of Tirnur in India may have stimulated to
similar enterprises. He first secured his position in Kabul (1.505), where he col-
lected round him a small force of some two thousand men. He took the field five
times, until eventually in 1526 he succeeded in defeating Ibrahim of Delhi (of the
dynasty of the Bahlul Lodhi), and thus bringing into his power the most powerful
of the five Mohammedan empires which then existed in India. When he died in
the year 1530, the last and, intellectually the foremost, conqueror of Mongolian
stock, he had founded a permanent empire, that of the " Great Mogul," which only
fell before the attack of the English in 1857. (See on this subject Section IV
of this volume.)
F. TIBET AND EASTERN BUDDHISM AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY
THE world was still trembling before the warlike hosts of Central Asia, when
those forces were gathering strength which eventually succeeded in taming and
rendering harmless the wild spirits of the nomads. These forces were Chinese
civilization, which will be discussed later (p. 194), and eastern Buddhism, whose
influences can only be understood by a survey of the more recent history of Tibet,
the theocratic State par excellence of Eastern Asia. The teaching of Buddha had
long lost its power in the Indian mother country, when it acquired Eastern Central
Asia, beginning with Tibet. Mongol Buddhism was not rooted in Indian civiliza-
tion, but in the fantastically developed monastic and ecclesiastical system of the
lonely Tibetan highlands, which had cut themselves completely off from the plains
of India, when the Buddhist teaching died away in those parts.
For this reason the more recent eastern Buddhism of Central Asia is sharply
differentiated from the earlier western form, which once was so important for the
culture of a wide area. The older form had stood in close connection with the
plains of the Indus and the Ganges valleys ; yet the missionaries in the time of
Asoka, when the Buddhism of India was at its zenith, had passed through Kashmir
and scaled the southern mountain walls of Central Asia, and had carried their
sacred books, their script, and their civilization directly to the Tarim basin, and
thence northward to the Uigurians and eastward to China. The new teaching had
hardly met with any response then among the Mongols and the other eastern
nomads ; in Tibet it first began slowly to gain a footing. But in the course of
time the whole western mission field was once more lost. Christian and Zoroas-
trian emissaries had worked in opposition to the Buddhist priests, until the doctrine
of Islam, grand in its simplicity, which has always exercised a marvellously enthrall-
ing influence over semi-civilized peoples, drove out all other forms of religion.
Besides this, the Buddhism of Central Asia had lost any support in India, owing
to the victory of the Brahminic teaching, and was entirely dependent on its own
strength. The term " simplicity " is indeed only to be applied with reserve to
Islam, which reached Central Asia through Persia. An Islamite mysticism
developed under the influence of Iranian intellectual life, which was hardly inferior
to the Buddhist in profundity and love of the marvellous, but was for that precise
reason capable of ousting and replacing the former. In its ultimate meaning, the
188 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
victory of the Mohammedan teaching signifies the supremacy of West Asiatic cul-
ture over the Indian. And this victory was natural, for Western Asia marches \"ith
the steppes of Central Asia for some distance and is closely connected with them
by old trade-routes, while the bonds of intercourse between India and the heart of
Asia have never been strong.
The later eastern dissemination of the Buddhist faith over Central Asia would
have been inconceivable but for the circumstance that even in China Buddhism
reckoned numerous followers, and that the Chinese of set purpose favoured a doc-
trine so gentle and so mucli opposed to military brutality. But that Tibet of all
others should become the holy land of Buddhism had been the object of the efforts
of Genghis Khan, who indeed, as a true Mongol, tried to employ to his own pur-
poses the " magic powers " of all religions, without adopting any one of them
exclusively. It was after all a very natural result that Tibet. took, so far as
religion was concerned, the place of India in the eyes of Central Asia ; men were
accustomed to look for the home of Buddhism in the South, and, since India
seceded, Tibet, which was always full of mystery, offered a welcome substitute.
At first, indeed, the growing reputation of Tibet for sanctity did not shield it from
disastrous attacks: under the first Mongol princes it was mercilessly plundered
and laid waste. But perhaps these lamentable events, by which the temporal
kingdom of Tibet was overthrown, were the contributory cause that henceforth the
spiritual power came forward and undertook the protection of the country with
better prospect of success (cf. p. 163).
Kublai Khan took account of the altered conditions when he promoted the
Lama (or priest) Pase'pa, who was a member of a noble Tibetan family, to be the
supreme head of all Lamas in his realm, and thus shifted the centre of gravity of
the Buddhist hierarchy to Tibet. In reality by so doing he conferred on him the
temporal power also over the country. On the complete disruption of the Mongol
empire, Tibet, which was not claimed by the Chinese Mongol dynasty, remained
as an independent ecclesiastical State, and could then for more than a century con-
tinue its unaided development under the successors of Pase'pa. While in China
the Buddhist papacy of the Tibetan chief-lama was no longer recognised or remained
without influence, the activity of Tibetan missionaries was, on the contrary, success-
fully continued. Tibet could not fail to become the religious centre for these
efforts.
The Buddhist doctrine of a new birth made men regard the chief-lamas as
reincarnations of great saints, or, indeed, as Buddhas themselves. Ultimately a
belief gained ground that the Great Lama remained always the same, and imme-
diately after his death was reincarnated in a child, who without demur was regarded
and reverenced as Great Lama ; the first regeneration of this kind is said to have
occurred in the year 1399. At the beginning of the fifteenth century there was
still no idea of strict religious government. The reincarnated Great Lama had by
no means met with universal recognition, and many years elapsed before he attained
any great authority. Most of the monasteries, in which religious life and learning
were centred, probably led a very independent existence. China, where the new
reigning house of the Ming was threatened from the side of Mongolia by the Mon-
golian dynasty driven out in 1368, then turned her attention again to Tibet. The
religious influence of Tibet on the nomads of Central Asia was not to be under-
estimated. Halima, one of the most esteemed Tibetan Lamas, was brought to the
I HISTORY OF THE WORLD 189
Chinese imperial court, overwhelmed with pompous titles and intrusted with the
spiritual supremacy in Tibet, on the condition that a small tribute was paid yearly.
Tibet thus was more closely linked to China, and the conversion and civilization
of the Central Asiatic nomads by emissaries from the holy land were encouraged
in accordance with the Chinese policy.
The Buddhist Reformation, which took place about the middle of the fifteenth
century, is a noteworthy counterpart of the Reformation of Luther, which began
only a little later. In Tibet also the immediate cause of the movement was found
in the depravity of the priesthood and the adulteration of the pure faith with pop-
ular superstitions of a Shamanistic origin, while the national questions, which
played an important part in Europe, were hardly noticeable there. Tsong ko pa
(Dsung khaba, 1419-1478) founded the new sect of the "Yellow Lamas," which
the followers of. the old sect opposed under the name of "Red Lamas." The
yellow sect remained victorious in Tibet proper, while the red sect held its own in
Ladak and elsewhere. Tsong ko pa was the real founder of the Tibetan hierarchy
in the form which it has retained up to the present day. He nominated one of his
pupils to be Dalai- Lama, a second to be Panchan-Lama ; both would undergo a
perpetual process of rebirth and hold permanently the spiritual headship. Tibet
was partitioned between them, but the Dalai-Lama received the greater half, and
gradually drove the Panchan-Lama into the background. It was long before the
Chinese paid attention to the new order of things in Tibet, although under certain
circumstances it might produce serious results. A Chinese embassy, accompanied
by a small army, appeared at the court of the Dalai-Lama in the year 1522, in
order to invite him to the imperial court. When the prince of the church de-
clined and was concealed by his subjects, attempts were made to carry him off by
force, but they resulted in complete failure. The Chinese emperor Wu Tsung
died at this crisis, and his successor, Shi Tsung, who favoured Taoism, did not
continue the plans against Tibet.
The third reincarnated Dalai-Lama, So nam, gave himself out for a " living
Buddha," and as such won wide recognition. He travelled into Mongolia, where,
being received with the deepest reverence, he came forward as a mediator between
a Mongol prince and the Chinese. The victory then of the yellow sect was decisive
in the north also ; countless Mongol pilgrims went yearly to Lhasa, and Buddhist
monasteries were founded in great numbers. In China the propitious influence of
the Tibetan high priest was noticeable in the increasing peacefulness of the nomads
of the steppe. Shi Tsu, the first emperor of the Manchu dynasty, which had ousted
the house of the Ming after 1644, fully appreciated that fact, and acknowledged the
presents of Tibetan envoys with a nattering invitation to the Dalai-Lama to come
to Peking. The invitation was accepted this time ; the Great Lama appeared in
the year 1653 at the court of the Manchu dynasty, where he was the centre of
universal respect, was invested with magnificent titles, and was finally escorted to
his home by a guard under an imperial prince.
But this triumph of the " living Buddha " was soon followed by a humiliation.
Since at the death of each Dalai-Lama the office passed to a child, who was con-
sidered to be his reincarnation, the government every time rested for many years
in the hands of regents, who were naturally tempted to keep their power even
when the Dalai-Lama came to manhood, or, what was still simpler, never to allow
the boy to live beyond a certain age. The regency was held by temporal princes,.
190 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n'
in whom we most simply see the successors of those old Tibetan rulers, who for a
time had made Tibet a powerful State, but then had been more and more driven
back by the hierarchy. As temporal protectors of the priesthood, and supported
doubtless by large possessions of land, they had learned how to maintain a certain
position. .
Then finally, when the reins of power slipped from the hands of the decrepit
fifth Dalai-Lama, the reigning Tipa (King) Sang Km saw that the moment had
arrived to replace the spiritual supremacy, which might be nominally retained, by a
temporal When the Great Lama died in 1682, the Tipa concealed his death, and
was then in fact lord of Tibet. The alteration was soon noticed by the surround-
ing countries. The Tipa placed a Calmuck prince, Kaldan, educated in Tibet as a
Lama, at the head of this tribe, and the Calmucks (Eleutes, Dzungarians) helped
him in return to repel an attack of the Nepalese, a powerful nation of mountain-
eers, who were dangerous neighbours of the holy land. The prince of the Eleutes
now extended his power on a secret understanding with the Tipa, and ventured to
attack China, where the fact had been "realised with great dissatisfaction that the
influence for peace exercised by Tibet on the nomads of the steppes was completely
changed. A Chinese Lama, who had been sent to the Dalai-Lama, had not been
allowed to see him. When then the Eleutian prince, after a defeat, declared to his
lord that he had begun the war with China simply and solely at the wish of the
Dalai-Lama, the terrified Tipa acknowledged, in answer to a peremptory letter of the
emperor Sheng Tsu (Kang hsi), that the fifth incarnation of the Dalai-Lama was
long since dead, and that the deceased had been reincarnated in a boy ; the death
had been hushed up and the sixth incarnation not publicly acknowledged, in order
to avoid disturbances. The news of these events spread rapidly, and, although
China took no further steps, considerably lessened the power of the Tipa. He
began in the year 1705 a fresh war against a Tibetan chieftain, but was defeated
and slain.
The victorious prince, La tsang, had already instated a new Dalai-Lama. But
he was not recognised by China and was replaced by another, whom La tsang under-
took to protect. Another Dalai-Lama, who appeared in Mongolia and claimed to
be the real sixth incarnation, was also rejected by the Chinese government, and
was only recognised as a saint of inferior rank. The bad example of the Tipa Sang-
khi had, however, produced its result : the Dzungarian prince Zagan Araptan, suc-
cessor to Kaldan (p. 193), who had seen what power in politics and religion the
protector of the Dalai-Lama could exert, invaded Tibet with an army, in order to
seize the Buddhist pope (1717). Potala, near Lhasa, where the Dalai-Lama resided
with the Khan La tsang, was stormed, the Khan killed, but the Great Lama was
kept in a place of safety. China no longer hesitated to check by force this danger-
ous turn of events, which might lead to a new invasion of the Middle Kingdom
by the nomads. A Chinese army and a Mongolian levy pushed into Tibet, but the
united troops were outflanked and cut to pieces by the Dzungarians on the river
Kola. The dejection which the Chinese and Mongols felt at this reverse led to
the proposal that Tibet should be left to itself, and that a new Dalai-Lama should
be appointed in another district. Emperor Kang hsi, however, insisted on renew-
ing the campaign with increased forces. The attempt was successful this time ;
the Dzungarians evacuated the country in the year 1720, and Kaug hsi was then
able to effect the necessary closer union of Tibet with China. For the future two
Central Asici~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
191
Chinese residents, for whom the necessary respect was ensured by a considerable
armed force, undertook the protection of the Dalai-Lama in place of the native
temporal kings. The reverence felt for this living Buddha diminished, however,
considerably in China, when the Dalai-Lama, who was staying in Peking on a
visit, died like any ordinary man, of smallpox. The small feudal princes of Tibet
at first still retained some power ; but after repeated disturbances they were com-
pletely subordinated to the Dalai-Lama, that is to say, to the Chinese governors, in
the year 1750. The internal administration of the country, with which China gen-
erally interfered very little, was now entirely organised on an ecclesiastical system,
since every local governor was given a Lama as colleague, who jointly with him
managed the affairs of the inhabitants.
Although the Dalai-Lama was again recognised as supreme, there could be no
idea of any actually permanent rule of the "living Buddha," since a new Dalai-Lama
was always raised to his high dignity in tender infancy and imperatively required
an adviser. For all foreign affairs the Chinese regents undertook this post ; for
home affairs a sort of new temporal monarchy was founded, since the " Eajah "
of Lhasa usually conducted the government until the Dalai-Lama attained his
majority. A strange fatality afterward willed that the Dalai-Lama hardly ever
attained the required age of twenty years, but usually died just before, and then
was always reincarnated in a child. In this way the Chinese influence also lost
ground. Tibet detached itself more and more completely on every side, and
has remained down to the present day, when Russia is apparently eagerly court-
ing its good-will, one of the most mysterious and isolated countries in the world.
When in 1792 a new invasion of the Nepalese was repulsed with the aid of Chinese
troops, the frontier toward India was almost entirely barred. A safeguard against
the influences of civilization was also found in the Himalayan State of Bhutan,
lying south of Lhasa, which is a miniature Tibet with a dual government, temporal
and spiritual, and an equally intense aversion to any influences from the outside
world.
Since Tibet supported the Buddhism, which was losing ground in India, and
became the centre from which a successful propaganda was sent among the nomads
of Central Asia, it discharged an important duty in the history of the world. The
dissemination of the Buddhist teaching, with its gentle code of morality and its
peaceful monastic life, may claim to have performed a paramount service in pre-
serving China and the Western World from fresh inroads of nomads, or, at any
rate, in enabling them to repel such attacks without difficulty.
Gr. MONGOLIA AND THE TARIM BASIN FROM 1300 TO THE PRESENT DAY
(a) TJie Last Descendants of Genghis. — When the flood-tide of Mongolian
conquest ebbed, the home of the new world-conquerors sank rapidly from its
dazzling height. The sparsely peopled country had given up its best resources,
and needed a long time to regain its strength. It was always a point of honour
with the eldest branch of the Mongolian dynasty, the Chinese, to preserve the
cradle of their race, with its old capital, Karakorum. This endeavour also har-
monised with the traditional Chinese' policy, which always aimed at exerting some
influence over the restless nations of the steppe, and must have been adopted by
the Mongol sovereigns when they had transformed themselves more and more into
192 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter n
genuine Chinese. Kublai Khan had repeatedly suppressed rebellions in Mongolia
and become master of the country; his successor, Timur (Cheng Tsung, p. 96),.
brought the whole country for a time under his influence. At the period of
the Mongol supremacy in China the Buddhist propaganda, of which Tibet was
the centre, seems to have shown great activity, being favoured by the Chinese
emperors, who were mostly attracted by Buddhism. The circumstance that the
Mongols, who had immigrated into China and were again driven out by the Ming,
were streaming back to their old home, could not fail to help this change.
When the Mongolian dynasty was fighting for its existence against the Ming,
the Mongols of Central Asia rendered feeble and ambiguous aid. After his com-
plete defeat in 1368, Shun Ti (Tohuan, or Tughan Timur), the Mongolian emperor,
fled to Shang tu in the north, and soon afterward died. His son and successor,
Biliktu (1370-1378), removed his court once more to Karakorum. Since all the
Mongol foreign territories had long since been lost, the sole remnant of the empire
left him was the pasture country on the north of the Gobi, which had been the
starting-point of the power of his house. There was still the possibility that a
new storm might be slowly gathering there, whose bursting would bring disaster
on more civilized countries. But the loss of China, which to a large extent was
due to the lack of union between the generals and the princes, had not taught the
Mongols wisdom. The smaller the remnants of their empire became, the more
furiously they fought for each shred, until finally complete disintegration set in.
The emperor of the Ming seized this opportunity to subjugate Eastern Mongolia.
The kingdom of Altyn Khan, to the northwest of the Gobi, remained as the last
relic of the Mongolian power.
(5) The Empire of the Calmucks (1630-1757). — The more modern attempts
to found a great power in Central Asia, and then in the true Hun fashion to attack
the civilized nations, were no longer initiated by the Mongols, whose character had
been altered by the tribal disintegration and the awakening zeal for the exercise of
the Buddhist religion, but by the tribes to the south and southwest of the desert
of Gobi, whose country was now partly known as Dzungaria. The contemplative
doctrines of Buddhism had not gained ground here so quickly, since many of the
nomads had been won over to Islam, which is less dangerous to the warlike spirit.
From the chaos of peoples in Central Asia a new branch of the Mongolian race had
detached itself to the south of the Gobi, the Eleutes, or Calmucks, who after 1630
had shaken off the Mongol yoke, and had already extended their influence as far
as China.
Under its Khan Kaldan this people seized Kashgar, where religious contro-
versies favoured the admission of this powerful Mohammedan priesthood, destroyed
the Mongol Empire of the Altyn Khan (p. 191), and threatened China toward the
end of the seventeenth century. At the same time Kaldan tried to employ the
religious power of Tibet in his own interest, by declaring that the Dalai-Lama
had raised him to his high position ; the temporal prince of Tibet, Sangkiii, sup-
ported him secretly (p. 190). The Mongols suffered severely under the attacks
of the Eleutes, and China's influence in Central Asia dwindled considerably, until
eventually the Manchu emperor, Kang hsi, determined in the year 1696 on a
great campaign against Kaldan. Kaldan was forced to retreat farther and
farther. Since his scheme for the support of his claims by the Dalai-Lama seemed
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 193
not to work satisfactorily, he now went over to Islam, which had many followers
in the west of his dominions; but his death, which occurred soon afterward,
cut these plans short.
The military power of the nomad world, which had been again concentrated in
-Dzungaria as a focus, was not extinguished by this event. Zagan-Araptan, the suc-
cessor of Kaldan, subjugated most of the towns of the Tarirn basin and extended
his dominions in other directions. He then formed the plan of sending an army
to Tibet, to assume by force the protection of the Dalai-Lama, and in this way to
make full use of the influence of this religious puppet to his own purposes. The
attempt met with unexpected success, but drove the Chinese to adopt more decided
measures. The expulsion of the Eleutes from Tibet (1720) was the result. The
Dzungarian empire remained nevertheless for some time a dangerous neighbour
of the other Central Asiatic tribes and of the Chinese. Finally, however, China
employed dynastic quarrels and internal wars as an excuse to destroy the last
great nomad empire of Central Asia, and thus, as it seems, to terminate forever
the age of the great wars between the nomad races of Central Africa and the
civilized peoples. Eastern Turkestan, which had been in the hands of the Cal-
nmcks, now (1757) fell to the Chinese.
(c) The Advance of Russia and the Restraining Influence of the Buddhist
Teaching. — It was not the first time that the Chinese had taken possession of the
Tarim basin, commanded the trade roads of Central Asia, and divided the nomad
tribes in the north from those in the south (p. 523) ; but this time the effect was
different and more permanent. The perpetually turbulent nomad tribes could not
be really subdued until they were shut in and surrounded on both sides, — until
the strong fortresses of civilization bounded the illimitable horizon of the steppe.
The first steps toward this condition had meanwhile been taken by the advance of
Eussia ; the frontier toward Siberia had been already determined, and any move-
ment of the Mongols toward the north and the northwest was made impossible.
In the southwest Eussia only gradually succeeded in acquiring Turkestan. Here,
too, the Chinese position was so weak that the Tarim basin was temporarily lost.
When, however, the khanates of Turkestan were occupied by the Eussians, China
also soon recovered what she had lost.
The expansion of the power of Eussia, which in the long run presents dangers
to China itself, has therefore admirably supported the Chinese policy, which has
always been directed toward the subjugation of the nomad nations of Central Asia.
But this very policy employed not only the old method of colonisation and of pit-
ting one nomad prince against another, but also the newer method of encouraging
Buddhism. The Manchurian dynasty in this respect has entirely followed the
example of the Ming, and the result is simply astonishing. " Buddhist doctrines,"
says Nikolai von Prschevalskij, " are more deeply rooted in Mongolia than in
• almost any other part of the world. Buddhism, whose highest ideal is indolent
contemplation, entirely suits the natural disposition of the Mongol, and has
created a terrible asceticism, which deters the nomad from any progress, and
tempts him to seek the goal of human existence in misty and abstract ideas as
to the Deity and the life beyond the grave." The ordinary good-tempered indo-
lence of the nomads is left, but in the place of outbursts of martial fury, which
affected individuals as well as nations, a continual slow dissipation of energy in
VOL. 11-13
194 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter n
religious observances, prayers, and pilgrimages has appeared. In this light • the
pilgrimages to Tibet or famous Mongolian sanctuaries are substitutes for the old
predatory and warlike expeditions. All the less important for the spiritual life of
the Central Asiatics: is the Buddhist teaching, whose primitive form is so instinct
with spirituality and thought. The Tibetan form of religion is itself quite de-
based, and has been merely outwardly introduced into Mongolia, where even the
priests as a whole do not understand the Tibetan sacred writings and formulae, but
use them in ignorance as an obscure system of magic. This branch of Buddhism
only shows a certain independence in so far as centres of the faith are found in
Mongolia, especially the town of Urga, whose Kutuchta, or high priest, ranks
directly after the two highest Tibetan Lamas, and, like these, is always reincar-
nated. As a rule, almost every Buddhist monastery possesses a " Gegan," or rein-
carnated saint. But the priests have in their influence taken the place of the old
tribal chieftains. They are treated with unbounded respect, and the wealth of the
country is collected in their sanctuaries. In the border districts toward Islam
stand fortified Buddhist monasteries, where the inhabitants seek refuge from
marauding or insurrectionary Mohammedans.
While the Buddhist religion thus showed its marvellous ability to restrain the
wild Central Asiatics, and while the region of nomadism was more and more
encroached upon by Chinese colonies, another and ancient aid to the progress of
civilization, the commerce and international communication on the highroads of
the heart of Asia, leading from east to west, had gradually lost most of its signifi-
cance. Even in the Mongol age wars broke out for the possession of these roads.
The attack of Genghis Khan on the Kharismians (p. 171) was due partly to reasons
of commercial policy. But the discovery of the sea route to the East Indies, which
soon led to the appearance of European ships in Chinese harbours, could not fail to
reduce the already much diminished overland trade to insignificant proportions.
It was no longer a profitable undertaking to make the immense journey through
insecure districts with valuable wares. The great caravan traffic was suspended,
and in its place was left merely a transit trade from station to station, which had
no bearing upon civilization. The overland trade, especially the export of tea,
revived only in one previously neglected place, namely, in the north of Mongolia,
where the frontiers of the two civilized empires, Russia and China, touch each
other. This route contributed distinctly to the pacification of the Mongol tribes,
who now obtained good pay for transporting tea through the steppes, and acquired
an interest in the prosperity of the trade.
The Age of the Insurrections of the Dungans (1825-1894}. — The Chinese
policy, notwithstanding all the improvement in the outlook, still met with many
obstacles in Central Asia, the chief causes of which were the adherents to Islam in
Dzungaria, the Tarim basin, and the western provinces of China. Where Islam
had once gained a footing it could not be ousted by the more accommodating Bud-
dhism. But the influence which the doctrines of Mohammed exercised on the
warlike spirit, the industry and energy of its followers, had to be considered, and it
required care and tact on the part of Chinese officials to avoid dangerous outbreaks
of the masses whom the new faith had brought into a closer unity. In spite of all
this, there were often sanguinary and temporarily successful insurrections of the
Dungans, in which the last embers of the old warlike spirit of Central Asia glowed
SffSttf] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 195
afresh. In the Tarim basin an Islamite revolt had already raged from 1825 to 1828
(p. 108). About the middle of the nineteenth century the descendants of the
dynasty which had been driven out of the Western Tarim basin by the Chinese at
the close of the Eleutian war in 1757 tried to win back their territory, after they
had already made small expeditions over the Chinese frontier. The first cam-
paign failed through the resistance of the towns of Kashgar and Yarkand. An
Islamite revolt under the leadership of Rasch ed-din Khodja prepared the
ground in 1862 for further operations. An auxiliary force from Khokand, under
Mohammed Yakub Bey, took part in a new invasion, which was led by Buzurg
(Busuruk) Khan, then a pretender. This time the Dungan soldiers of the Chinese
mutinied and seized Yarkaiid and Khotan, while simultaneously bands of Kirghiz
robbers swept by and besieged Kashgar (1864) ; when they had taken the town,
Buzurg Khan deprived them of their booty. Duriug the subsequent wars with
the Chinese and the Dungan insurgents, who refused to submit to the Mohamme-
dans from Khokand, Yakub Bey distinguished himself more and more as a general,
until he entirely deprived the incapable Buzurg Khan of his command and sent
him back to Ferghana. In the year 1868 the greater part of the Tarim basin was
in the possession of the new ruler, who styled himself, after 1870, " Atalik Ghazi "
(defender of the faith).
These successes would have been impossible had not at the same time a revolt
of the Mohammedans in Western China and Dzungaria reduced the Chinese gov-
ernment to dire straits. It was fortunate for China, which was in addition weak-
ened by the Taiping insurrection, that the insurgents attained no great results and
did not combine in a general attack on the tottering celestial kingdom ; still less
did they think of making common cause with Yakub Bey, to whom they were on
the contrary hostile, or even with the Taipings and the disaffected Buddhist Mon-
gols. The great Dungan insurrection was thus after all only a chain of local
risings, involving terrible bloodshed and widespread devastation. The Chinese
took refuge in the towns, some of which gave way before the attacks of the sur-
rounding Dungans, while others held out and thus became important bases for the
reconquest of the country ; this was especially the case in Kansu, the highroad
from China to the Tarim basin, where the insurrection broke out in 1862. In
1869 a Dungan army once more advanced and pillaged as far as Ordos; and
again, in 1873, towns in Southern Mongolia were attacked and destroyed. The
conduct of the war on both sides was pitiable.
After 1872 the Chinese began once more to take the offensive and to reconquer
Kansu. When this object was attained, after some years of fighting, the fate of
Yakub Bey was practically sealed. In the meantime he had been deprived of the
support of his fellow tribesmen and co-religionists in Western Turkestan by the
advance of the Russians. In the year 1878, after the sudden death of Yakub (May
31, 1877) had put an end to all organised resistance, the Tarim basin fell again
into the hands of the Chinese, and together with the districts on the Tianshan was
constituted a separate province in 1884. Here, too, China touches almost every-
where on the territory of the civilized nations, Russia and England, since the last
ill-defined border country, the highlands of the Pamirs, has been distributed among
the three powers (1895, Anglo-Russian agreement). The trade in the Tarim basin
has improved since England has devoted her attention to the communications with
India, and has stimulated a considerable caravan traffic. Russia, on the other side,
196 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ii
is anxious to revive the old routes to Western Turkestan. The fact that the popu-
lation of the Tarim basin and that of many parts of Western China profess the
Mohammedan faith is a permanent danger to the Chinese (1894, rebellion of the
Dungans), which can only be obviated in course of time by an extensive settlement
of Chinese colonists.
H. WESTERN TURKESTAN FROM THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF TIMUR TO THE
ADVANCE OF THE RUSSIANS
AFTER the Mongol onslaught the population had gradually divided into three
groups. The first of these consisted of the settled agricultural section of the peo-
ple, the inhabitants of the towns, oases, and riparian districts, the Sarts. These
represent to us the relics of the oldest elements of culture, which had been Iran-
ised in course of time, and, owing to large Persian immigrations, had acquired also a
physical likeness to the Persians. This peculiarity was intensified by the impor-
tation of Persian slaves, and the otherwise inevitable admixture of brachycephalic
nomads was counterbalanced. The Sarts had long abandoned their old faith, and
that of Islam was universally adopted. The Sarts showed no capacity for political
organisation. By the second group, the Uzbegs, on the contrary, we are to under-
stand half-settled Turco-Tartars, in whom, notwithstanding an admixture of Ira-
nian blood and a smattering of higher culture, the military temper of the nomad is
predominant. This large section of the people, which sprung up during the nomad
conquests, first ventured to lay claim to the supremacy, and finally usurped the
power of the Mongol dynasties. The movement was really started in the Tarim
basin, where even in the time of Timur the Kashgarians, who were never com-
pletely subjugated, had repeatedly tried to subjugate Western Turkestan (p. 182).
A third group of inhabitants of Turkestan is composed of genuine nomads, whose
chief pasture lands lie partly in the north and partly to the west of the Amu
Daria, toward the Caspian Sea and Khorasan (see map, p. 122). In the north
the people of the Kirghiz (Cossacks) had lived since early times, and had been
only driven out for a short time and from a few regions by roving bands of other
nomads ; in the west the Turkomans, predatory hordes who controlled the commu-
nications between Persia and the States of Turkestan, had risen from the fragments
of nomad tribes.
(a) The Kirghiz from the Commencement of the Sixteenth to the Close of the
Eighteenth Century. — The rule of the House of Timur in Turkestan ended in
1494. This revolution originated in an attack of several Timurid princes on
Mohammed Shaibek Khan (Shaibani), the leader of the Uzbegs, who seem then
to have had then- homes on the upper Jaxartes and in the borderlands of
Eastern Turkestan. The attack led to a complete defeat of the Timurids, and
in consequence they lost their possessions in Masenderan and Khorasan. It
seemed as if the whole of Persia would be conquered by Shaibek ; but at that
very time the Iranian people had been roused to fresh vitality under the leader-
ship of Ismail el-Safi, and Shaibek with his army fell before this new power
(1510). Under his successors, the Shaibanids, Turkestan still remained for a
time a united empire, but then broke up, as had been the case in the later
period of the Timurids, and yet earlier under the princes of the Yue chi, into a
Central Axia~\
and Siberia. J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
197
number of independent States, whose position and size were prescribed by geo-
graphical conditions. The purely nomad countries in this way became, for the
most part, independent. The people of the Kirghiz, who inhabited the steppe to
the north of the Aral Sea and Lake Balkash, had only partially submitted to the
House of Timur and the Uzbegs. The decline of the empire of Kipchak gave these
nomads an increasing degree of liberty, until in the sixteenth century two empires
were formed in the southwestern Siberian steppes,- — that of the Ulu Mongol and
that of the Kirghiz proper, or Cossacks, under the Khan Arslan, who brought
numerous other nomad tribes of Central Asia under his rule. The Kirghiz Empire
prevented the Uzbegs from encroaching further to the north, but subsequently it
broke up, that is to say, the nation of the Kirghiz divided itself into several hordes.
In the eighteenth century we find the Southern Kirghiz, who were comparatively
the most highly civilized and were partly settled, forming a State in the region
of Tashkent. They subsequently commanded the middle course of the Syr Daria.
The purely nomadic elements of the people formed the Great, the Middle, and the
Small Horde. Among the Kirghiz there lingered a trace of the old warlike and
predatory spirit of the Central Asiatics, which the surrounding nations must have
often felt to their prejudice. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there
was formed a league of the Dzungarians, the Bashkirs, the Calmucks of the Volga,
and those Cossacks who were already settled in Siberia as Eussian advance guards,
which reduced the Kirghiz to such straits that in 1719 they vainly appealed to
Eussia to interfere. Turkestan, the capital of the Middle Horde, lying on the
right bank of the Syr Daria, was taken by the Dzungarians. Part of the Kirghiz
submitted, the others retreated toward the south. Soon, however, they advanced
again and won back their country, though only to fall more and more under
the influence of Eussia.
The two towns of Turkestan and Tashkent were in the Middle Ages commonly
regarded as forming a part of the province which went by the name of Maurenna-
har (Ma wara'1-nahr, p. 180), and included the civilized parts of the province of
Western Turkestan. Their relations with the nomads were of a fluctuating char-
acter. If the power of the Kirghiz diminished, then they or their Uzbeg princes
were practically independent, but if it again increased, then they were more or less
subject to nomad rule. For the time being they were attached to the Uzbeg
empires. The Dzungarians possessed Turkestan in 1723, but after 1741 the Kir-
ghiz were again masters of the town. In the year 1780, Yunus Khoja of
Tashkent inflicted so crushing a defeat on the Kirghiz of the Great Horde, and
inspired such terror by the massacre of several thousand prisoners, that they
acknowledged him as their supreme lord.
(5) TJie Uzbeg States of Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand, after 1500. — Mauren-
nahar, owing to the nature of its soil, is divided into different regions, from which
in the course of history corresponding States have been developed : the district on
the lower course of the Amu Daria (Khiva), that on the middle course of the same
stream with the valley of the Zarafshan (Bokhara), and the upper valley of the Syr
Daria (Ferghana, Khokand). In addition to these the country on the upper Amu
Daria (Balkh) often formed a separate State ; but this latter region soon fell under
the influence of Afghanistan, when a stronger empire was formed in the south.
The middle and lower course of the Syr Daria were so much under the influence of
198 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
purely nomad tribes that no powerful States could have been formed there. Not
infrequently the upper valley of the Zarafshan, with its capital Samarkand, de-
tached itself from the region of Bokhara and constituted a separate State (Mau-
rennahar in the more restricted sense).
Of these States Khiva (Kharismia) had been at first seized by the Persians after
the defeat and death of Shaibek Khan. But since the Persians soon made them-
selves unpopular with the strictly Sunnite inhabitants of the country by favouring
the Shiite propaganda, an insurrection broke out in 1515, headed by the Uzbeg
prince Ilbars ; with the help of his brothers he gradually drove out the Persians
from all the towns in the country and made successful attacks on Khorasan.
Further developments in that direction were checked by the Turkoman tribes, who
even then regarded the steppe on the borders of Persia and Khiva as their ex-
clusive property. Since the brothers of Ilbars had firmly established themselves
in different towns as feudal lords, there could be no idea of any close union after
the death of the first monarch. It was not until the feuds between the various
vassal princes had somewhat calmed down and the Turkomans were pacified, that
the Uzbegs of Khiva with those of Bokhara could renew their attacks on the ter-
ritory of Persia. The Sefewide Tamasp I of Persia finally had no other recourse
than to ally himself by marriage with the royal family of Khiva, and to purchase
with a large sum a treaty which ensured peace for his frontiers. Fresh disorders
in China ended with the almost entire extermination of the descendants of Ilbars
by Din Mohammed Sultan, who divided the country among the members of his
family and was proclaimed Khan (1549). He took from the Khan of Bokhara
the town of Merv, that ancient outpost of Persian culture, and made it his capital.
After his death, however, in 1553, Merv soon lapsed to the Persians. The Khan
of Bokhara, Abd Allah, repeatedly interfered in the ensuing disorders, until he
succeeded in making himself master of the whole realm (1578). It was not until
1598 that one of the expelled princes was able to seize the greater part of the
country.
Nor was this the last time that Khiva was harassed by civil wars. Princes of
the reigning house were allotted towns which they governed almost indepen-
dently, relying sometimes on the Uzbegs, sometimes on the Turkomans, the Nai-
man, the Kirghiz, or the Uigurians, the remnants of whom were living in Khivan
territory. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, when Abu'l Ghazi I
Behadur (1605-1664) distinguished himself as prince (1644-1663) and as his-
torian of the descendants of Genghis, the Calmucks (p. 192) extended their rule
over the Kirghiz steppe as far as Khiva. The struggles with these new antago-
nists, and renewed wars with Bokhara, filled up the succeeding decades. Then a
more peaceful period set in; the Khan, who resided in Urgeuj or Khiva, was
really only the most powerful of the numerous vassal princes, who lived in the
various towns and sometimes fought out their petty feuds among themselves.
The characteristic feature of the history of Turkestan in modern times is this
pettiness. In the eighteenth century the Kirghiz of the Small Horde got the
upper hand in Khiva, until in 1792 an Uzbeg chieftain founded a new dynasty,
which lasted until 1873 (cf. below, p. 223). Bokhara, the central province of
Western Turkestan, also played no further important part in the world's history.
At first the descendants of Shaibek Khan established themselves there; one of
these, Obaid Allah (1533-1539), waged war with Persia, if we may apply such a
Central Asia]
<md Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
199
term to his marauding expeditions. The most important of the Shaibanids, Abd
Allah II (1556-1598), attempted with better success to reach a higher stage of
civilization. In the year 1599 a dynasty from Astrakhan (the Janids1) came to
the throne, having migrated back again from the Khanate of Astrakhan to Trans-
oxiana in 1554. The Khanates of Balkh and of Samarkand soon completely
severed themselves from Bokhara; the political downfall of which became still
more complete when Nadir Shah of Persia, in the year 1737, took vengeance for
the constant raids on his frontiers by a victorious campaign. A new Uzbeg
dynasty, that of the Mangites,2 which also boasted of Mongol descent, drove out
the House of Astrakhan and occupied the throne of Bokhara until 1868 (cf. below,
p. 222). Ferghana, or the Khanate of Khokand, was the country where the Timu-
rids had held their own for the longest period. It then fell into the power of
the Shaibanids and House of Astrakhan, but won in 1700 complete independence,
which it preserved until 1876. Owing to the geographical position of Ferghana,
the Persian power, which Khiva and Bokhara were always forced to respect, was
unimportant in those parts, but in return the affairs of Eastern Turkestan and the
Kirghiz steppe demanded continual attention; for example, the campaign of
Yakoub Khan, who temporarily drove the Chinese out of the Tarim basin, was com-
menced from Ferghana (p. 195). In the year 1814 Khokaud, which was then
gaining strength, conquered the southern Kirghiz steppe with the towns of Tash-
kent and Turkestan, and thus exasperated the jealousy which Bokhara had always
felt toward Khokand since the rise of the Mangite dynasty. Khokand was
finally conquered in 1841 by Nasr Allah of Bokhara (1827-1860), and notwith-
standing frequent rebellions it continued in this subjection until the appearance
of the Kussians in Central Asia — an event of which we shall have more to say
hereafter.
On the whole the Uzbeg period was for Turkestan an age of petty struggles,
which shows little genuine progress in civilization. A nomadic spirit was pre-
dominant in the population, which showed itself in ceaseless raids upon Persia.
The international traffic, which once had brought prosperity to Turkestan, was
diverted into other channels, and the formerly wealthy cities showed but the
shadow of their earlier magnificence.
4. SIBEEIA AND ASIATIC EUSSIA
SIBERIA lies, like the body of some giant half-numbed with frost, between the
Mongol steppe and the icy waters of the northern Arctic Ocean. This enormous
territory, with its magnificent rivers, would offer a boundless store of wealth to the
inhabitants, were it not that a terrible climate blocks the mouths of the rivers with
ice, changes the soil of the vast plains into swamps and barren tundras, and even
Shaiban (cf. p, 179, note).
Shah Budagh
Mohammed
Shaibet Khan
(ShaibSni)
Khoja Mohammed
Iskander
Abd Allah II Zahra Chanum
Yar Mohammed of Astrakhan
Jan
_J
Jauids (Ashtarchanids)
2 Jan
Nogai-Chief
Abu'l-Ghazi (L758-1785) . Daniyal (Mangit)
A daughter
Mir Masum Shah Murad
I
Mangites
200 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapterir
in summer keeps the ground hard frozen beneath its surface. It is true that the
country which we call Siberia falls into various divisions according to the climate.
The northern tracts, which can hardly support a thin and widely scattered popula-
tion, abut farther to the south on a region of forests, which are especially dense in
the mountainous east, while in the level west the steppe begins which stretches
without a break to Turkestan and Eastern Europe. Various economic zones are
thus produced : a North Siberian, embracing the tundras, which is broader in the
west than in the east, a West Siberian prairie zone, and an East Siberian forest zone.
Besides these the east coast must be reckoned a separate economic region ; while
the northern sea is of little value to the inhabitants of the tundras, the east coast
with the lower Amur and Kamchatka may be called a strip, where fishing is the
staple means of existence.
A. THE HYPERBOREAN ZONE
THE various forms of social economy which exist in Siberia are not, of course,
restricted to this region. The climatic zones, however much the differences of
height in the countries and the influences of the temperatures of the sea compli-
cate the simple conditions, taken as a whole encircle the earth in belts. Inside
these belts we find everywhere peoples who are subject to almost the same natural
conditions, and have adapted themselves in their way of life to these circumstances.
Thus tribes which are of completely different origin show in this way an affinity of
habits and customs which is often closer and more marked than that of blood ; for
example, the Arab nomad of the steppe resembles the Mongol, and the roving
Bushmen of South Africa have more resemblance to the Australian black than to
the Nigritian agriculturist. It is not, however, the climatic conditions only which
affect the economic life of a people ; the possibilities of intercourse form an addi-
tional factor. If, for instance, the nomadic methods of life, for which large portions
of their country are adapted, had been known to the isolated Australians, the Euro-
peans on their landing would have found a quite different people, capable, probably,
of offering a stronger resistance. On the other hand, a good example may be
despised : the Bushman has learnt nothing from his cattle-breeding neighbours.
Peculiarities of character which have been acquired by a long process of heredity
and natural selection, but are difficult to express and define accurately, play
an important part in this. In spite of these limitations, the climatic-economic
zones gain importance in proportion as the other sources of historical knowledge
grow scanty. From this aspect we cannot treat the northern Siberians merely as
a distinct group of the human race, but must investigate the economic zone to
which they, in common with American and European stocks, belong, — that is to
say, the northern polar zone, whose inhabitants have been called by the collective
name of Hyperboreans (see the map, " North Polar Kegions " ).
The main features of this universal Hyperborean civilization are determined
by the direct and indirect influences of the climate ; on the other hand, the sepa-
rate branches into which it is divided are differentiated by the specific character
of each several region, by its position as regards the rest of the world, and by the
type of its inhabitants. The direct influence of climate appears very distinctly in
modes of dress and domestic architecture, since among the Hyperboreans some
special protection for the body is absolutely necessary, owing to the inclemency of
the weather. The indirect influences of climate show themselves in the fact that
J5-
d
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 201
the number of edible plants is very small in the north. For food and for the
paraphernalia of civilized existence the peoples of the north rely chiefly on the
abundant fauna of those regions. The extensive and almost exclusive employment
of animal and mineral in the place of vegetable products is the most striking char-
acteristic of the Hyperborean culture.
This culture appears in its purest form among the Eskimos of America, since
hardly any southern influence is perceptible among them. Utensils and weapons
of bone, horn, and stone, fur clothing, houses and tents constructed from stone,
blocks of snow, or skins, are the characteristic features ; to which we may add, as
peculiarities equally produced by the climate, snow-shoes, snow spectacles, and
sledges drawn by dogs (cf. Vol. I, p. 131). The Eskimos show at the same time
that the Arctic tribes, like all other primitive races of the globe, at first practised
a purely acquisitive economy. They obtained the greater part of their subsistence
by hunting or fowling, or, to a less extent, by fishing. Wild plants, in so far
as they were suitable for food, were by no means despised. Indeed, among the
southern Ostiaks roots and bulbs constituted a considerable part of their diet, but
there is nowhere any idea of agriculture. Still less was there any notion of
breeding domestic animals, with the solitary exception of the dog, which almost
everywhere on the earth is the companion of man, even among the roving nations,
and has acquired a peculiar importance among the Hyperboreans. In these regions
the dog, as a beast of draught, improves the mobility of the inhabitants, and thus
widens the area from which they satisfy their'needs. In winter also, when provi-
sions are scarce, he serves his master as food ; usually only a few dogs are left
alive in order to keep up the breed.
Like these tribes, the European inhabitants of the southern ice-belt lived,
during the diluvial period, in the most simple Hyperborean fashion, as we learn
from prehistoric finds. Like the Eskimos, they delighted in a rude form of art,
which aimed at a realistic representation of animal and human forms (see Figs.
20-22 of the plate p. 120 in Vol. I), and may in essentials correspond directly
to the character and inclinations of these purely hunter peoples. In -order to
explain this affinity, it is not necessary to dwell upon the former junction of
Greenland with Western Europe, though this may have facilitated migrations
among the Arctic nations (see the soundings marked in the accompanying map,
"North Polar Eegions"). But, strangely enough, the Asiatic and the modern
European Hyperboreans do not possess this fondness for naturalistic art, but prefer
a conventional ornamentation. This small trait illustrates the great difference
which has grown up between the American and Asiatic polar nations. The former
have remained hunters and gatherers of plants ; the latter have mostly changed
into Arctic nomads, and thus revolutionised their economic principles, their inter-
ests, and inclinations. This is the result of a development within historic times,
the course of which can to some extent be still followed.
(a) The Dolichocephalic Hunters and Reindeer-breeders. — We saw (p. 130)
that after the glacial period the north of Asia and Europe was inhabited by a
dolichocephalic race which was adapted to a somewhat inclement climate, and
was therefore able to colonise the regions now accessible owing to the shrinkage
of the great crust of ice. Thus long-headed Arctic hunter nations were found
throughout the entire breadth of Siberia, who by their Hyperborean culture were
202 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter n
little by little sharply differentiated from their kinsmen living more to the south.
While these, then, were influenced by the higher development of agriculture and
metal-working among the short-headed nations of Western and Eastern Asia, and
while a northern offset of the copper and bronze culture, whose representatives
were mainly dolichocephalic, was traceable on the Altai, the northern Siberians
remained almost untouched by these agencies. Tillage was for them a physical
impossibility, and the smelting of ore implies an immense supply of suitable fuel,
which is almost entirely wanting in the tundras. Some new arts and contrivances
may have found their way to the north. Potters and smiths had practised their
crafts at an early period in the territory of the Ostiaks ; but on the whole the
Asiatic Hyperboreans remained a small and poverty-stricken nation of hunters,
with whom neither friends nor foes had intercourse. The chase, an occasional
fishing expedition, and the berries and cedar-nuts which they gathered, furnished
the bulk of their food.
The rise of nomadic pastoral nations, first of Aryan and then of Mongol stock,
could not alter these conditions much at first. The device of breeding cattle,
horses, or sheep could not be directly introduced into the Arctic regions, even
though the Yakuts showed later that cattle-breeding could be successfully at-
tempted in quite northern latitudes. The example, therefore, which was afforded
by the nomad tribes of Central Asia, could only produce an indirect effect. It is
indisputable that cattle-breeding tribes had been driven to the northern tundras,
where their cattle could no longer thrive, so that they were forced to look for some
substitute. A long time seems to have passed before the discovery was made that
the reindeer could be domesticated like cattle, and could supply milk, draw bur-
dens, or be slaughtered for food. Many tribes have only adopted this new method
of economy in modern times, — for example, the Oroks on Saghalien, according to
J. A. Jacobsen's views. The Eskimos, although there was always a certain traffic
across the Bering Straits, have not yet acquired a knowledge of reindeer-breeding.
Even the Kamchatkans at the time of their discovery bred only dogs.
The reindeer has in many ways taken the place of the dog, and, by adding to
the mobility of man even more than the latter, it has enlarged the possibilities of
existence. It can be used not merely to draw the sledge, but for riding or as a
beast of burden, and it finds its own food. It certainly yields far less milk than
the cow ; but it produces milk on a diet of moss and bents. Thanks to the rein-
deer, man extracts a living from the vegetation of the tundras. The extent to
which the existence of most Asiatic Hyperboreans depends upon the reindeer, is
shown by the remarks of Otto Finsch on the dangers of pestilence among the rein-
deer in Western Siberia. " If the supply of reindeer fail, the indigenous population
must sink deeper and deeper into poverty, and be reduced to the status of fishermen
living from hand to mouth. Without reindeer the tundra, and the skins, etc.,
which it supplies, will be inaccessible and useless ; without reindeer the natives
lose their greatest resource for barter, food, clothing, and shelter." The welfare of
the people is not, however, everywhere so closely bound up with the possession of
reindeer, since hunting or, after the disappearance of the beasts of the chase, fish-
ing must supply the majority with food. In many places, also, the use of rein-
deer milk is not yet known or has only recently been learnt. These observations
indicate that the breeding of reindeer, to which the Greeks and Eomans make no
allusion, is not yet of any antiquity. The small number of varieties among the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 203
reindeer, and their general uniformity of colour, are facts which support the same
conclusion. When, finally, observation shows that among the most westerly Hy-
perboreans of the Old World, that is to say the Lapps, the fullest use is made of
the reindeer, while the most easterly tribes on the Bering Strait, for example, are
not yet acquainted with it, we have some intimation of the source from which
the practice of reindeer-breeding has been borrowed, and of the direction in
which it has spread. Keindeer-breeding, after all, belongs exclusively to the Hy-
perboreans. No other nation seems to have served them directly as a model, and
none of the civilized nations which have penetrated into the northern regions have
imitated them to any appreciable extent.
(5) Composite Nature of Hyperborean Civilization. — The inquiry into the
characteristics of the Hyperboreans assumes a quite different aspect when we ex-
amine the racial affinity of the different tribes. It will then appear that not even
the Asiatic Hyperboreans are genuine descendants of that dolichocephalic primi-
tive population which filled Northern Asia and Northern Europe at the close of
the diluvial epoch, but that a strong contingent of short-headed peoples was mixed
with most of them. This fact is established by an investigation of their languages.
The " Yenisseian " languages, which originally were spoken by the dolichocephalic
Hyperboreans, were for the most part supplanted by Mongolian or Finno-Ugrian
languages, belonging certainly to short-headed peoples. A nation that even in its
language has not undergone any change, is that of the Yenissei-Ostiaks, who have
been erroneously confounded with the Finno-Ugrian race of Western or Obi-
Ostiaks. It is likely that some stray tribes of fair-complexioned dolichocephalic
Aryans mixed with the Hyperboreans, as the prevalence of a blond complexion
among the Ostiaks seems to prove ; it is, however, also possible that among the
Hyperboreans themselves, a fair-complexioned variety may have been locally de-
veloped. In any case these blonds increase the racial confusion which reigns
there. But, on the whole, it can be said that the Finno-Ugrian group, to which
most Hyperboreans are usually now assigned, is the product of a mixture of doli-
chocephalic Hyperboreans on the one side, with brachy cephalic Mongols, speaking
one of the languages derived from the same stem as the Mongolian, on the other,
but that the extent of the admixture may vary greatly in each separate tribe.
Community of culture has naturally tended to obliterate the differences which
were due to race. But this culture deserves a more minute investigation, since,
notwithstanding its genuinely Hyperborean character, it has been compounded of
two elements, one of which was peculiar to the old dolichocephalic people or
Yenisseians, while the other may be ascribed to the Mongol immigrants. The
remnants of the former, which suggest to us the most ancient ways of life and
thought in the north, must be followed with especial attention.
One of the most obvious survivals is the Bear-worship, which was originally
connected with the idea that the spirits of the deceased were incarnated in bears.
As a further development, therefore, the bear appears as a sort of divinity, the lord
of the forests, whom men must treat with the most marked consideration, even
when they fight or slay him. This cult, still vigorous in the east among the
Ainos and the Giliaks, lost hold on the west, though it did not entirely disappear.
In Finnish tradition the ancient significance of the bear is still most prominent.
The Ostiaks and Vogules celebrate the slaughter of a bear with feasting, and
204 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
swear by the paws and the skin of the beast. According to Wilhelm Radloff,
the Yenissei-Ostiaks in particular, the purest remnant of the old population,
observe these customs.
A second peculiarity of the ancient Hyperboreans is the great importance
which they attach to mystic implements, the original meaning of which is hard to
arrive at. We may especially notice sticks hung with rags or similar things.
Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746), relates of the Kamchatkans that they wor-
ship "fly-whisks," that is, sticks hung with grasses, as gods, under the name
of Inoul ; the grasses being intended to represent the curling hair of the deity.
The Ainos make similar sacred emblems for themselves; they leave half-cut
shavings fluttering at the end of a stick, so that a sort of whisk is produced.
Similar things can be traced to Southern Japan ; even the ancient Shinto religion
(cf. p. 3) includes among its sacred implements sticks wrapped with strips of
paper (Gohei). As usually happens, the traces of this primitive implement of
magic grow less frequent as one goes westward, but an attentive search will show
a fair number of instances. Among the Tartars of Minusinsk, who certainly
possess a strong element of Hyperborean blood, staves hung with rags are much
used in the Shamanist ritual, and the Tartars of the Bureya mountains worship
festoons of leathern strips and scraps of cloth as divine objects. Even among the
Magyars, the custom of constructing "rag-trees" can be shown to have existed
even in modern times.
Genuinely Hyperborean is also the belief in a subterranean world precisely
similar to the upper world ; the severity of the climate does not encourage the
thought that the future world lies in the cold clouds, but it guides men's looks-
to the warm and sheltering earth. This trail is harder to follow, since the belief
in subterranean realms can be found elsewhere ; only among the more southern
nations do we find that the lower world assumes a gloomy character and is-
contrasted with the bright celestial abodes. Finally, the art of ornamentation
shows a surprising affinity throughout the whole of Northern Siberia. Once
more the most recognisable remains of this old art are to be found in the east,
althou'-.: the patterns used in ornament can be traced far in the west among
Samoyeds and Ostiaks.
In all these matters a long period of development is implied, which is pro-
duced less from great wanderings and shiftings than from slow transpositions-
which can only be followed in their results. Aggressive wars on a large scale,
resulting in ethnical displacements of a sudden and important nature, can hardly
have occurred in the Hyperborean region in antiquity. The warlike nomads of
the south, to whom the rich civilized countries lay open, ventured occasionally on
marauding expeditions into the " land of darkness ; " but the nature of the country
prohibited wide conquests, for it could not feed large armies, and was only
accessible to the native who had sledges and reindeer and dogs at his disposal.
(c) The Northern Migration of the Yakuts. — If, nevertheless, Mongol elements
have gradually mixed with the Hyperboreans, it is only a question of detached
fragments which have been forced into the inhospitable northern realms. A
comparatively recent example of this is shown by the Yakuts, who are at present
settled in the district of the Lena, as far as the Arctic Sea. The Yakuts are genu-
ine Turks who still cherish the memory of their southern origin. It is conjee-
Central Asia
and Siberia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 205
tiired that the Bureyats, who at the time of the first Mongol invasion in the
thirteenth century pushed on from the Amur into the region round Lake Baikal,
drove them to retreat to the north, when they thrust themselves between the
Tungusian tribes (cf. below, p. 214). They adapted themselves admirably to
their new country, without, however, abandoning their original industry of cattle-
breeding. The kine of the tribe acclimatised themselves to their new home, and
gave the energetic Yakuts a better means of subsistence than the Tungusians
and Ostiaks possessed in the reindeer. The Yakuts, who retain a trace of nomad
love of enterprise, are certainly superior to their neighbours in industry and vigour.
B. THE WEST SIBERIANS
THE nomadic West Siberians on the one hand, and the East Siberian hunter
peoples on the other, are groups distinct from the genuine Hyperboreans in their
modes of life, although both are ethnically more or less akin to the old dolicho-
cephalic races of the Arctic regions.
While the Hyperborean tribes as a whole lived undisturbed in their inhospitable
regions, and for their own part can hardly have felt any inclination to seek new
homes in more southern lands, the inhabitants of the West Siberian steppes
(see the map, p. 208) had been drawn into many of the great movements of the
nations of Central Asia, and their territory had often formed a part of nomadic
world empires. The West Siberians, in the more restricted sense, from whom the
northern Arctic peoples are to be distinguished, inhabit a steppe country which is
turned to the best advantage by such a combination of cattle-breeding and hunting
as forms the staple means of subsistence among the Huns and Mongols. It
naturally follows that restlessness is innate in the West Siberians. In fact, the
era of the Huns roused up a people there which exercised a lasting influence on
the development of European civilization, — the people, that is, of the Magyars.
(a) The Magyars, Alani, and Avars. — The Magyars, differing from the
Osmans, whose zone of expansion touched their own in their power of adapta-
tion to European ways and thought, attached themselves more and more firmly
to their new home, while the Turk was slowly driven back from the soil of Europe.
That they succeeded in thus adapting themselves is partly the result of their
ethnical affinities. At the dawn of history, we find Southwestern Siberia filled
with Scythian peoples who were mainly of Iranian stock, and therefore belonged
to the fair-complexioned and dolichocephalic group of European nations (cf. Vol.
IV, p. 73). It was probably through these Scythians that the hunter nations living
farther to the north, who were akin to the dolichocephalic Hyperboreans, became
acquainted with nomadic ways of life ; and this result was hardly effected without
a mixture of races. At a later time the Mongol nomads drove out or absorbed
the Scythians, and, by intermingling freely with the West Siberians, imparted to
the latter a Mongol language and physique without, however, destroying the central
nucleus of this people ; the Volga-Finns remained distinctly dolichocephalic. In
this way is explained the surprising phenomenon that the modern Magyars by
their appearance bear little resemblance to the inhabitants of the steppes of Central
Asia. Later admixtures with European peoples have naturally tended to produce
the same result.
206 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
The Ural formed no impenetrable barrier for the Finno-Ugrian peoples, or, to
speak more correctly, the mixture of races, from which they sprung, took place
in the steppes of Eastern Europe; the Ural-Altai stock spread as far as the Volga
in the south, and Finland and Norway in the north. The similarly compounded
nation of the Alani, in which Iranian and Mongol elements were more strongly
represented than the Hyperborean, kept the Finnish tribes in Western Siberia and
Eastern Europe for a long time aloof from contact with the world of civilization.
It was only when swept forward by the great Hun onrush that it left an open road
for the Siberian nomads, dwelling further to the north.
History tells us little about the earlier condition of the Finno-Ugrian nomads,
who then for the first time attracted the attention of the civilized world. It seems
that a line passing through Tobolsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoiarskoi represents the
northern frontier of the true nomad peoples and the Hyperborean hunting-tribes;
for the stupendous sepulchral mounds (Kurgans, Vol. IV, p. 76), so characteristic
of West Siberia, are only found to the south of this line. The contents of these
tombs make it at once clear that the culture of the nomads was closely connected
with that of the Altaian region, which, from its use of bronze and copper, may be
regarded as an offshoot of the ancient civilization of the south. The frontier
towards the Hyperboreans may gradually have been shifted further northward.
The introduction of reindeer-breeding possibly modified the differences between
the nomads and the northern hunters. No accurate information is forthcoming
as to the original homes of the Magyars ; but the great number of Turkish words
in their vocabulary shows that they lived comparatively far to the south of West
Siberia and found opportunities of mixing there with Turkish tribes. They were
there drawn into the great westward movement of Central Asiatic peoples, which
lasted for centuries after the descent of the Huns upon Europe. They were pre-
ceded by a people with whom they had much in common, the Avars, a branch
of the Yen Yen, who, after the destruction of their Central Asiatic empire, pushed
toward the west, and in this movement carried Uigurian tribes with them. They
invaded the modern Hungary about 565 and held their position there until their
overthrow by Pepin, son of Charles the Great, in the year 796. In the mean-
while the Magyars, who had already reached the Volga in 550, had followed
on their tracks until they appeared in the year 886 on the Danube and founded
a new and more lasting empire in the former territory of the Avars. In contrast
to their distant kinsmen the Bulgarians south of the Danube, who exchanged their
language for a Slavonic dialect, they preserved their own peculiar tongue, and
in doing so insured the permanence of their nationality.
(6) Ugrians. — After the disappearance of the Huns and Alani, and after the
withdrawal of the Magyars, the nomad nation of the Kirghiz, or Cossacks, came
more prominently into notice in Southwest Siberia. The tribes of the northwest,
on the other hand, are included under the generic name of Ugrians, and their
country is called Ugria. This, notwithstanding its remoteness, attracted some
notice from an early time, since it became an important district for the fur trade,
and also communicated with Europe through the passes of the Ural range. Ugria
shared on the whole the political destinies of the districts lying immediately to
the south ; both the one and the other were usually attached to the great nomad
empires of Central Asia, first to that of the Turks, then to that of the Uigurians.
'] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 207
The Kirghiz themselves, the chief nation in Southwest Siberia, formed at a later
time a powerful empire of their own. The new wave of conquest, which surged
outwards from Central Asia in the Mongol era, naturally poured over Western
Siberia. On the dissolution of the mighty Mongol Empire the country formed part
of Kipchak, which, in addition, included the steppes as far as the sea of Aral and
the Caspian and the lowlands of Eastern Europe. An attempt of the Mongol
general Nogai, the grandson of Teval (p. 179, note), to found in the nortli an
independent State, finally failed (1291) ; but his followers, who from their leader's
name are known as the Nogais, held their own in West Siberia and South Eussia.
After that, we hear little of Ugria as a part of the Mongol Empire, not even at the
time of Timur, who temporarily annexed Kipchak to his ephemeral world empire.
Timur on one occasion only (1391) penetrated by a laborious march through the
steppes of Southwest Siberia, as far as the Irtish and Tobol, but he then turned
westward to the lower Volga.
But although Ugria had politically little importance, steps were taken at an
early time to develop its industries. As early as the eleventh century merchants
from Novgorod reached the country and opened up a trade in furs. These com-
mercial relations became more frequent as time went on ; Novgorod established
fortified factories, and finally the natives were regarded as subjects of the powerful
commercial city, and were required to pay a fixed tribute in skins. At that period
the country appears to have also supplied valuable metals. In the year 1187 the
tribes of Ugria, who were governed by different princes, revolted. In 1193 an
expedition from Novgorod against Northwest Siberia proved disastrous, and before
fresh operations could be undertaken, the period of the Mongol conquests dawned.
Novgorod, however, contrived to come to terms with the new rulers and to resume
her trading expeditions, so that even then the connection of West Kussia with
Ugria was not entirely interrupted.
(<?) The Umpire of Siberia, — On the fall of the empire of Kipchak the leaders
of Nogaian hordes began to found small principalities in Ugria. When Timur
died, On was the most powerful of these princes of Siberia, as the country was now
called for the first time ; but, besides his Tartar rivals, he had to reckon with the
men of Novgorod who had once more acquired a footing in Ugria. On, having been
dragged into the succession-wars of Kipchak, was defeated and slain, whereupon
his son Taibuga turned his attention toward the lower Tobol, drove the Novgo-
rodians thence, and founded a small kingdom, the capital of which corresponded
roughly to the modern Tiumen (see map, p. 208). There were incessant struggles
with the Ostiaks and Vogules, with the Kirghiz and with the Mongol rulers of
Kasan. It was connected with these events that Ugria in 1465 became tributary to
the Russians, who now appeared on the scene as a new great power. The destruction
of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible transferred to Russia all claims of that ancient
commercial city to the supremacy. In the year 1499 the districts on the lower
Obi were incorporated in Ivan's dominions. The Tartar prince of Tiumen removed
his royal residence to the country of the modern Tobolsk, where he built the forti-
fied town of Isker or Sibir. The Siberian princes, who in 1557 wisely agreed upon
an annual tribute to Russia, remained there undisturbed for some considerable time.
Besides the " Siberian " Empire other Tartar principalities must have existed in
Western Siberia. These examples of organised constitutions were not left unnoticed
208 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
by the Ostiaks, the most southerly of the Hyperborean nations ; probably attacks
of the Tartars forced them into closer combination. Every small Ostiak horde was
soon in possession of a vosk, or little town, where the chief developed his power
on the model of the Tartar princes. Every fortified spot thus became the centre of
a petty principality ; several of these small States were, later, occasionally united
into one large State. The strongholds lay on heights above the rivers and were
fortified, on the Tartar model, with ramparts, ditches, and palisades. According to
legend, there were some of the smallest size which were armoured with plates of
copper. Numerous remains of these are to be found even to-day in Western
Siberia ; the southern fortresses, built by Tartars, are much superior to the northern,
which are to be ascribed to the Ostiaks. The Ostiak principalities had only a very
thin population ; the largest of them, Tiaparvosh, in the modern province of To-
bolsk, hardly put three hundred armed men into the field, which implies twelve
hundred inhabitants at most, while the smaller could only reckon some hundred
souls or less. In face of this political disunion the merchants of Novgorod might
well have ruled as kings for a while. The principalities of the Tartars were some-
what more important; Siberia, the most powerful of them, might have boasted a
population of thirty thousand or so.
In this empire of Siberia a revolution was consummated in the second half of
the sixteenth century. The reigning prince Yedigar (Yadgar) was overthrown and
Siberia was conquered in 1563 by the Uzbeg chief Kozum (Kuchum) who adopted
an aggressive policy toward his neighbours and assumed the proud title of Em-
peror of Siberia. But at the same time with crafty calculation he began to enforce
the creed of Islam amongst his mostly heathen subjects, for which end he applied
to the prince Abd- Allah at Bokhara for the necessary missionaries. If this meas-
ure had not been adopted too precipitately, and had not the encroachment of a new
power materially altered the state of affairs, the prestige of the Siberian Empire
would have been extraordinarily enhanced. In a country so vast and so sparsely
populated a closer union could not be looked for unless some spiritual bond, such
as Islam offered, brought the separate national groups nearer together. At the
same time Mohammedan fanaticism was a splendid weapon against the Christian
Eussia. Since, however, the Mohammedan propaganda met at first with vigorous
opposition, especially among the Ostiaks, it conduced rather to the weakness of the
empire, precisely at the moment when the great merchants of Eastern Eussia, who
had suffered heavily by the attacks of the Siberians, sent the Cossack chief Yarmak
to Ugria. The accounts of this expedition (cf. below, p. 218) show that a number
of petty Tartar principalities existed in Ugria, more or less dependent, according to
circumstances, on the Siberian empire. The national strength, as well as the
majority of the inhabitants, lay along the rivers and streams ; and along the rivers
also the Eussians pressed forward, as they took possession of the limitless plains
of Siberia. The southwestern steppe, the home of the Nogai and Kirghiz nomads,
preserved its independence far longer than the Ugrian north.
C. THE EAST SIBERIANS
THE east of Siberia is principally mountainous, and the tundras here lie farther
to the north than is the case in the west (see the map " Siberia"). The industries
which this hill country may profitably support are very various. In parts it is so
SIBERIA.
I IRI'SSIAN KMPIRE
u dmdfil into theCorrrnments oflbbolskJ
e General govrrrunent.t oftrkutskt
Amur For the tttriiionjof'tfif latter In. to pro
nets sec the map The principal places or /
the gorrrnmenlsfpronncc\ are
"innunn
Institut Xeipri^ .
A'e»- York: Oodd, Mead £. C"
2SSi#*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 209
rich in forests and game that the chase, and as a consequence of that the fur trade,
could in themselves support a really considerable population, while on the numer-
ous rivers another branch of merely acquisitive industry, fishing, may be profitably
pursued. In the more southern parts there are numerous hills and plains, suitable
for agriculture, as well as stretches of pasture land, well adapted for cattle-breeding.
The increase of the population is not, therefore, restricted by any hard and fast
limitations. On the other hand the mountainous character of the country checks
those vast migrations of peoples which are so conspicuous in Central Asia. Only
the southern border of East Siberia was involved in them, or, to speak more cor-
rectly, it was a nursery for those nations which inundated Central Asia or China
from that quarter. The country round Lake Baikal was the cradle of the Mongo-
lian and Turkish tribes ; but many, though in their influence less important, nations
of conquerors poured forth out of Manchuria.
(a) The Northern Migration of the Tungusians. — From this southern border
migrations were made toward the north also, which gradually changed the ethnic
character of the regions adjoining the North Pole ; but it was naturally a long
series of slow movements which brought about this result. It is more than prob-
able that in early times there was in East Siberia no break in the chain of Hyper-
borean tribes which stretched from Northern Europe along the shore of the Arctic
Ocean to America and Greenland ; this view is supported by the connection be-
tween the ancient civilizations of the Western Hyperboreans and the small nations
on the shores of the Bering Sea (p. 214). This chain was, however, snapped by the
northern migration of the Tungusian nation, which had been formed in the south-
east highlands of East Siberia mainly of Mongoloids, but with a strong infusion of
Hyperborean blood ; we must regard the Nu chi (p. 212) and the Manchus (p. 213)
as the people most nearly akin to it.
The Tungusians are remarkable as an instance of a primitive people whose lan-
guage and national customs are not closely connected with their manner of life.
The explanation is found in the natural configuration of the country, which offers
several possible means of livelihood, and in its position, lying as it does close to
the nomad territories of Central Asia, the agricultural districts of China, and the
Arctic hunting-grounds. It follows that no nation perhaps has so easily changed
its method of living and adapted itself to different conditions of existence as the
Tungusian. When at first there was only a superficial knowledge of the Tungu-
sians a distinction was made between the different groups according to their way
of life ; there were thus Tungusians of the steppe, or of the forest, and Tungusians
employing the reindeer, the horse, or the dog. In this sense one could also speak
of agricultural Tungusians in the south. There are accordingly genuine hunters,
nomads of the steppe, Polar nomads, and settled agriculturists among this many-
sided nation, the individual tribes of which have even in modern times, at great
crises, placed their mode of life on a new economic basis ; for example, Tungusians
who have lost then: herds of reindeer from pestilence have taken up dog-breeding,
and agriculturists, who had pushed on to more northern regions, have learnt to
become once more simply hunters and fishermen. In earlier times, as to some
extent even now, the chase was the most important industry of the Tungusians,
whose life clearly shows the traits of a nation of mountaineers and hunters. Ob-
servers have unanimously described the true Tungusians as brave and yet good-
VOL. II— 14
210 y HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
natured, trustworthy and honourable, industrious and intelligent. It is owing to
these qualities, coupled with their great capacity for adapting themselves to all
economic conditions, that the Tungusians were able to expand farther to the north
and practically drive out the Hyperboreans. We still find, as relics of the old
Arctic nations, Samoyedes on the Taimir peninsula, Yukahires on the coast of the
Arctic Ocean east of the mouth of the Lena, and Chukchis on the great northeastern
peninsula which terminates in the East Cape.
The Tungusians did not remain undisturbed in their new possessions. Just as
Manchuria, that cradle of nations, had sent them northward, so in the Mongol
period the Yakuts, came to the Arctic regions from that other cradle on Lake Bai-
kal, and made a broad road for themselves through the Tungusian territory down to
the mouth of the Lena. The Hyperboreans seem, so we may conclude from the
traditions of the Samoyedes, to have given way at an earlier time before the Tun-
gusians with more or less of a good grace. The warlike Tungusiaus, on the other
hand, only allowed their country to be taken from them after desperate battles, the
most fierce of which is said to have been fought not far from the confluence of the
Patoma and the Lena. The victorious Yakuts introduced cattle-breeding into
the Arctic regions (cf. above, p. 204). In the northeast also, the Tungusians were
again driven back, this time by the Chukchis, whose strength and mobility may
have been greatly increased by the introduction of reindeer-breeding.
(b) The Southeastern and Southern Branches of the Tungusians. — Although
their northern migration spread the Tungusians over enormous tracts, yet, since the
polar regions can only support a small population, it was on the whole the least
important of the ramifications of Tungusian tribes, which spread from Manchuria
in every direction, with the exception perhaps of the purely western one. Far
more important was the advance of the Tungusians to Korea and Japan, which,
like the later wanderings toward the south, seems to have been effected under the
indirect, but early felt, influence of Chinese civilization. The Tungusian tribe of
the Suchin, settled in Manchuria, paid as early as 1100 B. c. a tribute of stone
arrow-heads to China. The Chinese political system, on the one side, and the
nomad empire of the Hiung nu, on the other, soon served as models to the Tun-
gusian peoples, only that the latter, in accordance with their national character,
showed a tendency to republican, or, at any rate, federal forms of government.
(a) The Wu hwan and the Sien pe. — The first instance of this kind was ap-
parently the tribal league of the Wu hwan (p. 140) in Western Manchuria, which
flourished shortly before 200 B. c., but then succumbed to the superior power of the
Huns, and only preserved a remnant of independence by placing itself under the
protection of China. In the east of Manchuria, on the other hand, the Sien pe
(Hsien pi) organised themselves ; some of them advanced to Korea and thence to
Japan, where they exercised great influence on the ethnic characteristics of the
population. This " advance " was more probably a retreat before the Huns, who in
209 B. c. had broken up the western Tungusians and were now pressing hard on
the eastern section. It is open to question whether the migration was really led
by Chinese, as the historians of the middle kingdom tell us; but there is no
doubt that the Tungusians brought with them to Korea and Japan a civilization
which was deeply tinged with that of China: the germs of the Japanese State
(p. 8) point to a Chinese model
"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 211
The main body of the Sien pe remained behind in Manchuria, where it grad-
ually acquired strength, while the Wu hwan in the year 77 B. c. were again de-
feated by the Huns and then completely humiliated by the Chinese. When the
northern empire of the Huns broke up in 84 A. D. (p. 142), the Sien pe seized the
greater part of Mongolia and, varied though their fortunes were, long remained
the first power in eastern Central Asia. Their empire attained its greatest size
about the middle of the second century, when Tunshih huai extended its frontiers
beyond the Tianshan and the Altai (p. 156) ; according to Hun fashion it was di-
vided into a central province with an eastern and a western wing. The wide diffu-
sion of the Sien pe over the steppe country of Central Asia proves that they were
predominantly nomadic in their way of life. The uncultured Tungusian inhabi-
tants of the shores of the Pacific, mere tribes of fishermen, took no part in political
organisation, while the southern and settled Tungusians in Liautung, which had
even then a strong admixture of Chinese blood, had founded a State on the
Chinese model, which was now required to recognise the suzerainty of the Sien pe.
The empire of the Sieu pe lost ground at times after the death of Tunshih huai.
But the nation still held the inheritance of the Hun power for centuries, monopo-
lised the western trade, and attempted to gain influence over China. There soon
arose in the middle kingdom, which was torn by civil wars, States with Tungusian
dynasties, whose founders had forced their way into China as chiefs of separate
tribes of the Sien pe, or as leaders of mercenaries. In Liautung the Yumen in the
year 317 A. D. founded an empire, which embraced later a large part of North China
and Korea ; other powerful tribes were the Twan, the Mu sung, and especially the
To ba. The greater part of China stood for centuries under the sceptre of Tungu-
sian princes. These, however, quickly became Chinese in sympathies, and were
absolutely no support to the empire of the Sien pe ; indeed they knew how to pro-
tect their new homes against the attacks of their kinsmen better than the Chinese
themselves. Notwithstanding a temporary rally in the fourth century, the power
of the Sien pe sank ; their western possessions fell to the Yen Yen and later to
the Uigurians and the Turks, so that nothing was left them but Manchuria and
the eastern border of the Central Asiatic steppe. They then constituted only a
loosely compacted body of separate tribes, which was sometimes welded more
firmly together by an energetic leader. Isolated groups had pushed southward as
far as Kuku Nor, where a not unimportant State of the Sien pe arose in the fourth
century. When great powers, such as the empire of the Turks (p. 159), were
formed in Central Asia, the various Tungusian tribes fell under their sway ; if
China gained in strength, she extended her influence over them. The tribe of the
Sien pe gradually entirely disappeared and others assumed the headship. In the
seventh century the empire of Pu hai (Bo khai) was formed in Manchuria, which
soon attained a great prosperity.
(/3) The Klii tan, Nu chi, and Manchus. — The Tungusian peoples of Manchuria
became once more important for the outside world at the beginning of the tenth
century, when the tribe of the Khi tan (Kidani, Kathai ; see map, p. 174, and
cf. p. 57) extended its power. The Khi tan were a people deeply tinged with
Chinese culture and also mixed with Chinese blood, such as might be expected to
arise on the borders of Liautung ; in their national character the rude vigour of the
savage was harmoniously blended with the usages of a higher stage of civilization.
212 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \ChapUrH
Under the leadership of Yelu A pao chi, who deliberately encouraged this mixture
of races by transporting Chinese prisoners to Manchuria, they hurled themselves
in 907 against Ta tung fu in Shanshi, where the overthrow of the Tang dynasty
had lately led to civil war. In the year 947 the power of the Khi tan, who in 924
had subjugated the empire of Pu hai and later also a great part of Mongolia, and
whose leader (d. 926) styled himself after 916 Tai Tsu, "emperor," reached the
zenith of its power, only to sink rapidly. Nevertheless their empire, which in 937
had assumed the official title (Ta) Liau — (great) Liau dynasty, held its own until
1125, when another Tungusian race, the Kin or Nu chi, won the supremacy in
North China. These in turn succumbed before the Mongols in the year 1234 and
even Manchuria became tributary to the new ruling people. When the Mongol
dynasty was forced to retire from China (1368), the southern cultivated districts
remained more or less dependent on China, while the northern tribes, so far as
they were not harassed by the advance of the Yakuts, were of little importance in
their disunited condition. The Chinese long succeeded in hindering the recon-
struction of a Tungusian State, which, as experience taught them, would have soon
encroached on the south by carefully fomenting all petty jealousies. Manchuria
was then divided into four Aimaks, which were almost incessantly at war one
with the other. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that
the combined strength of the country found a vent for itself in one irresistible
outbreak. In the year 1608 an insurrection, produced by the extortions of the
excise, ought to have warned the Chinese to act carefully, but, before that, a small
spark had caused a fire, which, neglected for a time, continued to smoulder until it
finally overwhelmed the whole of China.
A petty prince of the Manchu race had been defeated and killed by his oppo-
nents with the help of the Chinese. An avenger of his death arose in his son
Nurchazi (Tai Tsu, Kao huang ti, or Aisin Gioro ; p. 101), who took the field in the
year 1583 with thirteen mail-clad horsemen and, after long years of fighting,
united the Manchus under his rule (1616). The Chinese then for the first time
began to notice the danger, but could not decide upon any thorough-going meas-
ures. Threats from the Chinese gave Nurchazi the welcome pretext for invading
in 1623 the Chinese frontier-province of Liautung and thus initiating a series of
battles, which sapped the strength of China and shattered the power of the Ming
dynasty. In the year 1625 the Manchu sovereign removed his court from Hsing
ching to Mukden. Nurchazi's successor, Tai Tsung Wen Huang ti (1627-1643),
assumed the imperial title in 1636 ; yet, properly speaking, it was not by the
Manchus that the Ming dynasty was overthrown, but by Chinese bands against
whom the help of the Manchus was invoked as the last desperate resource
(p. 102). When once the Manchus had seized Peking in 1644, they never left
the country again ; they became masters of South China also after forty years of
fighting.
The new dynasty of the Manchus, with Peking for their capital, kept pos-
session of their old home up to the Amur. In the meantime, the Eussian power
had begun to spread farther in the north, and the Chinese government was now
forced to reckon with this factor. The destinies of the northeastern Siberians
were now soon decided by the influence of the Eussians (cf. p. 221).
Central Aria,~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
213
D. THE NATIONS ON THE COAST AND ON THE ISLANDS OF THE NORTHWESTERN
PACIFIC OCEAN
THE Hyperboreans, who, with their scattered and poverty-stricken settlements
fringe the northern limit of the inhabited earth, are a true border nation, in com-
munication with the rest of mankind on one side only. The races on the north-
east boundary of Asia deserve this title less, because there a sea studded with
islands and accessible to navigation washes the coasts, and the mainland of
America approaches closely to the East Cape. Like all border-districts, this part
of Asia shelters fragments of nations, scattered or repulsed remnants of earlier and
lower civilizations, whose representatives have taken refuge from the great floods
of the continental peoples in the peninsulas and islands or have offered a last and
successful resistance on the narrow strips of coast.
Two circumstances favoured this resistance. Any one who studies the map on
p. 208 will notice on the northeast the Stanovoi chain, which borders the greatest
part of the coast and cuts it off from the hinterland ; the narrow space between
these mountains and the sea offered the conquering nations no room for expansion.
Regions such as the peninsula of Kamchatka, which is only connected with the
mainland by a narrow pass far to the north, or the islands of Saghalien and Yezo,
were naturally still more secure from their attack. But even if the nomads of
Central Asia, or even the hunter nations of Manchuria had attempted to hold the
coast, they would have been forced to betake themselves to an unaccustomed in-
dustry, that of fishing. Some few Tungusian tribes, which reached the coast at an
early date, have indeed conformed to the customs of the earlier inhabitants and
have become typical fishermen with a surprisingly low civilization. Such a tran-
sition was hardly possible for the pastoral nations of the steppe, who, on the
rare occasions when they entered the coast country, did so as conquerors, not as
fugitives.
(a) The, Common Features of the History of Northern Asia. — Defective
culture and complete political disintegration characterise the nations of the North
Asiatic coast and the adjacent islands. It will probably never be possible to write
a connected " history " of these races ; some general features may be noticed ; for
the rest, we can do no more than attempt to adduce some historical facts as to the
various countries and races. The chief countries to be distinguished are the
Chukchi peninsula in the north, Kamchatka, the islands of Saghalien and Yezo,
the coasts of the sea of Okhotsk, and lastly the valley of the lower Amur, the
only part where the coast seems more closely connected with the hinterland and
where it is possible for a nation of fishermen to live farther in the interior. The
peoples of North Asia here came most frequently in contact with more advanced
civilizations. The broad outlines of the history of the northeast Asiatic races are
somewhat as follows. In the period immediately succeeding the Ice Age a
dolichocephalic population of Arctic hunters and fishermen spread over a part of
the northeastern mainland and had already crossed the Bering Straits, as certain
resemblances to the civilizations of Arctic and Northwest America seem to show.
The advance of nations like the Mongols toward the north forced a part of the
inhabitants to retreat to the peninsulas and islands, where they long remained
214 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
unmolested. Tungusian tribes, later, on their northern migrations, caused new
displacements and partially broke through the chain of coast nations, while other
Tungusians, by crossing over to Japan, helped to drive back the old north Asiatics
even on the islands. The Chinese for their part several times extended their rule
as far as the Amur, and influenced the tribes whom they found there by inter-
marriage and introduction of civilization.
(5) The Separate History of the Palceo-Asiatics. — The Chukchis are the most
northeasterly branch of the Palseo-Asiatic nations, as Leopold von Schrenck pro-
poses to call the whole group. Not so very many years have elapsed since a part
of the nation passed from the primitive condition of mere hunters to reindeer-
breeding; according to Stephan Krascheninnikov (" Kamchatka," 1754), the use of
reindeer milk was not yet known about the middle of the eighteenth century.
Similarly the Koriaks, who lived farther to the south, were divided into settled
fishermen and nomad reindeer owners. The nomads despised the fishermen, and,
as a matter of fact gained in strength and warlike spirit by the change in their
mode of life. In recent times the Tuugusians have been actually driven back
again by the Chukchis. The knowledge of reindeer-breeding did not cross the
Bering Straits to America. But the presence of true Eskimos, the Namollo, or
Yu-Ite, on the Asiatic side of the Bering Sea shows that nevertheless international
relations were established there.
The inhabitants of Kamchatka, the Kamchadales, or Itelmes are physically, if
not linguistically, akin to the Chukchis. The multiplicity of languages among the
Palaeo-Asiatics, and the physical differences between them (for example, between
the Chukchis and the Ainos), shows that this group of nations, formerly scattered
over a wide region, is extremely heterogeneous.
The Kamchadales considered themselves the original inhabitants; they cer-
tainly must have reached their peninsula as fugitives at a comparatively early date.
That their immigration dates back to a remote period is proved by the extraor-
dinary way in which the nation has adapted itself to the nature of its new home.
The Kamchadales were politically disunited ; but, at the time when first, owing to
the Eussians, more accurate knowledge of them was forthcoming, the lesson of
tribal consolidation had been learnt to some extent. The need of it was impressed
on them not only by domestic wars but also by attacks from abroad. The Koriaksr
probably the more mobile reindeer nomads, invaded Kamchatka from the north,,
and the seafaring inhabitants of the Kuriles plundered the southern districts and
carried away numerous Kamchadales into slavery. Some sort of intercourse with
the civilized countries of the South must have existed then ; the Kussians found
Japanese writings and corns among the Kamchadales, and even captive Japanese
sailors, who had been shipwrecked on the coast. The beginnings of a State under
an able chief led to the rise of two federations on the peninsula, which were able
to assert their independence, until later the encroachment of the Eussians put an.
end to this slow process of internal evolution. The Ainos (Ainus, cf. Vol. I,
p. 574) hold a peculiar position among the Palseo-Asiatics in physique, language,
and culture. A type of the old northern race has been developed in them, which,
in externals, particularly in the luxuriant growth of hair and beard, strikingly
recalls the northern Europeans, while other characteristics, such as the colour of
the skin, the salient cheek-bones, etc., resemble those of the Mongolian race. This
215
people also, as their isolated language proves, must have been long settled in their
home, the northern islands of Japan and Saghalien. When a State began to be
organised in the south of Japan by the combined action of Malays and Tungu-
sians, a struggle at once broke out with the aborigines, the "field-spiders," by
which we must understand a race of pigmies dwelling in caves, and the Ainos.
The former, the "Koko pok guru," were exterminated, and the Ainos ousted
or absorbed. An examination of place names shows that the Ainos once were
settled in the South as far as Kyushu ; in historical times, they were still to be
found in large numbers in Northern Hondo (Honshiu). They are at present
limited to Yezo, Saghalien, and some of the Kuriles. The withdrawal of the
Ainos was not consummated without the Palreo- Asiatic civilization having left dis-
tinct traces on the customs, religion, and art of the Japanese. Many perplexing
phenomena of Japanese civilization can only be explained by the discovery of their
prototypes among the Ainos.
At the present day, the Ainos give the impression of a people who are decadent
in every respect. Many of the arts of civilization, which they formerly possessed
(the knowledge of making earthenware ? cf. page 2), appear to have been lost,
partly, no doubt, under the overpowering influence of Japanese culture. The fact
also that the Ainos now exhibit a predominantly gentle and friendly nature, instead
of their old strength and savagery, seems a sign of exhaustion in the struggle for
existence rather than proof of advancing civilization. Their political retrogression
is undeniable. So long as the nation was still at war with the Japanese, a certain
degree of combination clearly existed. The Ainos on Yezo even now relate that in
former times a mighty chief lived in Piratori, who exacted tribute from the whole
island. Every village now has its petty chief, under whose government it leads an
independent existence.
Many changes seem to have occurred on Saghalien. Even before the arrival
of the Russians, the Giliaks, a race closely akin in its civilization to the Ainos,
had migrated thence to the mouth of the Amur, possibly in consequence of wars
with the Ainos, whose territory was more and more curtailed by the advance of the
Japanese from the south. The short-headed race of the Giliaks, with its strong
Tungusian admixture, was probably led by these events to return to its earlier
home. Tungusian reindeer nomads, the Orokes (Oroko, Olta) crossed over later to
Northern Saghalien, apparently with peaceful intentions. Like the Giliaks, in
whom an infusion of Palseo-Asiatic blood was unmistakable, the peoples on the
lower Amur and the neighbouring coast may be mixed races, but the Tungusian
element is predominant in them. Under this head come the Lamuts on the shore
of the sea of Okhotsk, the Goldes on the Amur, and many smaller tribes. The
Tungusians themselves are a mixture of Mongolian tribes and the dolichocephalic
permanently settled population.
Trifling as may be the historical results obtained by a survey of the regions of
Northeast Asia, yet it is interesting to see how, before the destructive encroach-
ment of a European power began, the slowly surging waves of civilization had
spread to the remotest border-countries. In the interior we see how with the
advance of the Yakuts the last wave, which finally brought to the north the
cattle-breeding industry known since the earliest times in the more southern coun-
tries, filled the district watered by the Lena. An earlier wave, which brought
216 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter II
with it the reindeer nomadism, has reached in places the coasts of the Bering
Sea, and begins gradually to advance to Northern Kamchatka and, through the
migration of the Oroks, to the island of Saghalieu. But outside, on the more
remote peninsulas and islands, there still live the mere fishermen and hunters,
who are acquainted with no domesticated animal but the dog, and eke out their
existence, as their ancestors have done for thousands of years past, by a system
of mere acquisition.
E. THE EUSSIANS IN SIBEKIA AND CENTRAL ASIA
THE appearance of Eussia in Siberia and on the frontiers of Central Asia marks
a new and important chapter in the history of the Old World. The struggle of
the unruly nomad nations with the civilized countries which surround the steppe
districts of Asia had lasted more than two thousand years. Western Asia had
succumbed under the repeated shocks, or had become a nomad country ; India had
frequently sunk defenceless before the attacks of the sons of the steppes ; Eastern
Europe had met with the same fate and lay, since the time of Genghis Khan,
under the yoke of barbarism ; only China, that ancient country, although con-
tinually overrun and apparently crushed, had with indomitable pertinacity won
back yard by yard the soil from the powers of destruction, and pushed the limits
of her influence up to the western extremity of Central Asia. Now a second civil-
ized power from the west came on the scene, and if it used its weapons in order
permanently to possess the lands up to the frontiers of the Chinese Empire, the
evil spirit of destruction at any rate was fettered until it was, to all appearance,
stifled beneath the grip of civilization. The Chinese had indeed already shown
by their support of Buddhism and by their agricultural colonies how even the
barbarism of Central Asia could be tamed.
That from Europe a crushing counter-blow would be eventually struck at the
source of such unspeakable calamities, and would bring a part of Inner Asia into
the power of the western civilized nations, was in itself to be anticipated, since
the highest existing power of civilization and culture had been developed there.
To this power, for which soon the earth itself seemed too small, the wild warlike
spirit of the nomads of the steppe was doomed to yield so soon as the path which
led to the desired goal was trodden. It is far more astonishing that this counter-
blow was struck so late ; the reasons for this, however, are to be found to some
extent in geographical conditions.
If the European civilization wished to advance towards Central Asia, only the
east of Europe could serve as a basis. Now the east of Europe is nothing more
than an offshoot of the great plains of Northwest Asia, and is a piece of Asia that
required to be conquered and colonised before any further action could be contem-
plated. The south of Russia had always been the favourite battle-ground of the
nomads. It was there the swarms of Scythian horsemen had forced the Persian
army of Darius to retreat ; there the Alani had been overwhelmed by the storm of
victorious Huns ; there the hordes of Bulgarians, Khazars, Avars, and Hungarians
had rested at various periods, and there, finally, Mongol hordes had ruled as lords
for centuries. But farther to the north, where the forests prevented the nomads
of the steppe from any long sojourn, lived Finnish and Hyperborean tribes of
hunters, who resembled those of Siberia in poverty and defective civilization.
Central Asia'
and Siberia
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
217
Against all these forces so adverse to civilization, Europe could never once place
her most capable and advanced nations in the field. The Russians, who as the
eastern vanguard of the Aryan race had to bear the brunt of the attack, were
hardly less barbarous than the wildest Central Asiatics, but, as a nation of
peaceful agriculturists, were no match for them in warlike ability. This is the
only explanation why the Russians soon fell before the attack of the Mongols, and
then for centuries bore the yoke of the nomads in shameful dependence, and
indeed after the liberation still trembled before the Tartar Empires in the Crimea
and on the Volga. The long servitude, to which the bloodthirsty tyranny of Ivan
the Terrible was a sequel, naturally did not help to raise the character of the
people ; one would hardly have foretold a brilliant future for the Russian even in
the seventeenth century. It was therefore one of the chief duties of the Western
civilized world to introduce European civilization among the Russians themselves.
Attempts were made to reach this goal by means of western European immigrants,
who first worked upon the princes, and through them on the people, until Peter the
•Great openly broke with Asiatic barbarism, and applied all the resources of
European civilization to the protection and extension of his realm (cf. Vol. V).
It was only after that date that Russia was really qualified to undertake, and to
bring to a victorious close, the war against the destructive forces of the nomad
world.
(a) The Cossacks down to the Year 1600. — Even if the Russian had retained,
from a period when he was more Asiatic than European, qualities which made
him seem akin to the nations of the steppes, that was perhaps no hindrance to his
new task. He who would track the nomad to his last lurking-place needs some-
thing of the nomad in him. A ruler of Asiatics would understand his subjects
better if he felt a trace of the Asiatic spirit in his own character and impulses.
In addition to this the Russian nation, sorely against the will of its rulers, had to
some extent forged for itself an instrument which was admirably adapted for the
conquest of the steppe and could soon be used with the greatest success against
nomadism : namely, the Cossacks. In the insecure border lands between Russian
territory and the Tartar steppe, a new nationality had been gradually formed.
All who had made Russia too hot to hold them, criminals as well as the persecuted
innocent, fugitive serfs, sectaries, fraudulent taxpayers, thieves, and vagabonds,
sought an asylum in those lawless regions, where they organised themselves and
daily fought for freedom and life with the Russians and Tartars. Every revolution
in Russia brought fresh masses of discontented people to the Cossack settlements,
and doubtless fugitives from the Tartar countries swelled their numbers. Thus semi-
nomad nations of horsemen were formed, at first the Ukraine Cossacks, from Little
Russia chiefly, on the Dnieper, and the Don Cossacks of Great Russia on the lower
Don. It was by slow steps only that they were incorporated in the Russian
Empire. The fact was then recognised that these border folk and robbers were
men admirably adapted for use in the struggle with the inhabitants of the Asiatic
steppes. A large number of Cossacks, organised on a military system, were
gradually deported and planted under various names in Siberia, as far as the Amur,
and in Turkestan.
The merchants of the republic of Novgorod had first discovered the way to
Siberia, and had even founded a sort of sovereignty among the tribes of that region,
218 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \Chapter n
(p. 206). Such a policy, which was not entirely checked even by the disorders
of the Mongol age and was soon resumed by the Russian sovereigns after the over-
throw of Novgorod (1477-1479 ; cf. VoL VII, p. 45), was possible because in the
north it was not necessary to traverse the homes of the nomad inhabitants of the
steppes, but merely the hunting-grounds of small Finnish and Arctic tribes.
The northern road of the fur trade was little affected by the revolutions in the
south ; indeed it was not even under the control of the Russians, whose power was
centred round Moscow and did not extend far to the north. Even after the fall of
Novgorod (1570) the merchants in the northeast of Russia led an almost indepen-
dent existence, and it was only through them that the Russian princes exercised a
certain dominion over some of the northwestern tracts of Siberia. Almost by
chance these conditions led to a campaign against the still independent Siberian
princes, which was destined to alter the situation completely.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Russian family of Stroganoff
in the district of Perm had got the trade with Siberia in their hands, but saw their
profits and their influence menaced from two sides. The Great Khan of Siberia
was beginning to form schemes of conquest and had sent his Tartar armies on
expeditions over the Ural right into the country of Perm, while from the southwest
the Volga Cossacks, kinsmen of the Don hordes, were harassing and plundering the
trading haunts of the great merchants. According to the time-honoured com-
mercial policy of Russia, the Stroganoffs tried to pit the two invaders one against
the other, and with this object applied to the Cossacks, whose raids in the north
were only made because this people, disturbed in their old settlements by the
Russians, were seeking new homes. It was not difficult to persuade an army of
seven thousand Cossacks under the command of Yarmak Timofeyev (itch) to make
an attack on Siberia in the pay of the Stroganoffs. Yarmak started in 1579, but
lost the greater part of his army in the very first winter, which he had to spend on
the west of the Ural. He pushed on with the survivors, and with his fast dwin-
dling army eventually reached in 1581 the Tobol, on whose banks he more than
once defeated the forces of the Siberian Khan Kozum. On October 23, 1582,
Isker, the capital of the Khan, was taken ; but after that there was no prospect of
any further action by the weak handful of men, against whom the petty Tartar
princes soon advanced from every side, since no help could be expected either from
the Stroganoffs or from the Cossack bands which had remained behind.
In this dilemma Yarmak applied to the Russian Tsar Ivan IV, the Terrible,
who already claimed the sovereignty over the countries on the Obi. The first
tidings of the expedition against the Khanate of Siberia had not been favourably
received at Moscow, since men were tired of wars against the Crim Tartars, and
did not wish to bring Russia into conflict with the Siberian Tartar Empire, the
power of which they clearly overestimated. The victory of the Cossacks was now
welcomed with the greater enthusiasm. The support, which Yarmak received, was
at first indeed insignificant; Isker was lost again, and when Yarmak fell in 1584,
practically nothing was left in the hands of the Russians but the territory which
had long been claimed by them, even if never really subject to their rule. But the
way had been paved, the dread of the Tartars had been overcome, and the effective-
ness of the Cossacks for such undertakings had been clearly shown. The welcome
possibility of giving these unruly auxiliaries a new sphere for their energies was
an incentive to further operations^ Isker was reoccupied in the year 1588, while
Central A sia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
219
Tobolsk (Bitsik-Tura) had already been founded as a centre of the Russian power.
In 1598 Kozum Khan, who had held his own in the south, suffered a decisive
defeat and fled to Central Asia, where he disappeared. His sons and grandsons1
continued to make inroads with nomad hordes into Russian territory, but achieved
no lasting successes.
(&) Russian Aggression in the East and West (after 1600}, — The Asiatic pos-
sessions of Russia now had two fronts from which to repel attacks or to make an
advance : a southern one, namely, toward the steppes of South Siberia and Turkestan>
where warlike nomad nations lived as insecure and dangerous neighbours, and an
eastern one toward the tundras and hill country of East Siberia, where only semi-
civilized hunters and reindeer herdsmen offered a feeble resistance. An advance
was naturally made first on the east frontier, and comparatively soon extended to
the shores of the Pacific. The necessity of acquiring a secure frontier also forced
the Russians inevitably onward to the south, notwithstanding the great sacrifices
and efforts which were here required of them as time went on. The flanking posi-
tion, which the command of the Caspian Sea offered them, was not used successfully
until late in the wars between Khiva and the Turkomans, after a disastrous attempt
of Peter the Great (1717). In the north, on the other hand, communications by sea
through the Arctic Ocean were soon resumed. The English explorer, Hugh Chan-
cellor, penetrated in 1554 to the White Sea, and a short while after founded the
Muscovy Company of English merchants for trade with the far north of Russia. His
venture was patronised both by Ivan the Terrible and by the English court ; and
though he perished in 1556, while attempting to repeat his first great voyage, the
heirs of his enterprise did not lose heart, the Muscovy Company flourished, and
English ships from Archangel appeared at the mouth of the Obi in 1614.
(a) The Peaceful Acquisition of Eastern and Northern Siberia (until 1800). —
Eastern Siberia had been mainly occupied by Cossacks, who pushed on along the
rivers, protected the new territory, as they acquired it, by fortified settlements, and
thus in course of half a century reached remote Kamchatka. The Russian govern-
ment was careful to cover this advance by the establishment of friendly relations
with the Mongol Altyn Khan (p. 192). The trade with China had then been
already started; the first tea reached Russia in 1638 through the agency of Altyn
Khan. Meantime rapid advance was made in the north. In the year 1632
Yakutsk was founded on the Lena ; in 1643 the first Cossacks forced their way to
the upper Amur, and followed this stream down to the sea of Okhotsk. Kam-
1 Genghis Khan
Juji
Shaihan
Kozum (Kuchum)
Ali
Ishim
1
Ablai Girari
Juveh
Daulet Girai
Tsars of Tiumen until 1659
220 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
chatka was discovered a few years later, but it was not occupied until after 1696.
All these results were naturally not obtained without a struggle ; the collection of
the fur tribute, the yassak, often led to insurrections. But the paucity of the
native population and the European armament of the Cossacks always turned the
scale in favour of the new masters. The ostrog or fortress of Nijni Kolimsk, on
the Arctic Ocean at the mouth of the Kolyma, which was founded in 1644 by the
Cossack, Michael Staduchin, formed for a long time an important base for the open-
ing up of Northeast Siberia. Anadyrsk, the inhabitants of which held their own
for years in their wars with the Chukchis, was built soon afterward. When the
Cossacks had firmly established themselves on the Amur, the country round Lake
Baikal was annexed to the Russian dominions, and Irkutsk founded in the year
1652. But it usually happened that the authority of the home government was
for a long time disregarded in the distant territories they acquired. The Cossack
settlers habitually indulged in civil war, plundering and massacring each other
without scruple ; sometimes, also, they openly defied the home authorities, as was
the case in Kamchatka during the years 1711-1713.
In the Amur districts resistance was met with from the Manchus, who at first
retreated, but then, aided by the resources of the subject Chinese Empire, regained
their old possessions (1656). Once again the Russians tried to extend their sov-
ereignty from the strong town of Albasin (Yaktz), which they founded on the
upper Amur as a base of operations, but after the place had been twice (1659 and
1685) taken and destroyed by the Chinese, they were compelled in the year 1689
to decide to evacuate the whole Amur district. Russia, nevertheless, did not
cherish hostile feelings toward China, whither repeated embassies were sent. On
the contrary, the most northerly of the trade routes to China, which now was com-
pletely in Russian hands, began to develop vigorously. The two nations gradually
recognised that both imports and exports would pass best and most safely at the
point where their territories directly touched each other with well-defined boun-
daries. The crests of those mountains, which border the Gobi desert and the Tarim
basin on the north, seemed suitable as such boundaries. The first settlement of
frontiers was arranged by the envoys of the two great powers in the years 1728
and 1729. The Chinese party in Manchuria had, however, been much strengthened
in consequence of the wars with the Russians, and a systematic partition of the
country had been carried out, so that for the future Chinese culture triumphed in
the original home of the Manchus. Chinese military colonies guarded the Amur,
which formed a fixed boundary for a long period. The seat of the Chinese military
administration was at first at Aigun (founded in 1684), subsequently Mergen,
and finally Tsitsikar. The disturbances on the frontier now almost entirely
terminated.
The gradual establishment of peace and order in Siberia enabled the Russian gov-
ernment to undertake the scientific exploration of this enormous and still unknown
territory. There were first and foremost geographical problems to be solved, espe-
cially the problem whether Asia was joined to America. The report of the Cossack
Deschnef about his voyage through the channel, afterward called the Bering Straits
(1648), still reposed unread in the archives of Irkutsk. Finally in the year 1733 a
scientific expedition was sent, which, by its admirable constitution, gave to the
entire civilized world for the first time definite information as to the nature of
Siberia. It was almost entirely composed of non- Russians. The Danish captain,
Central Afia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
221
Vitus Bering, who had already explored the seas round Kamchatka in the years
1725-1730, commanded the expedition. He was accompanied by Martin Spangen-
berg and Alexis Tschirikov, who had been his lieutenants on his previous voyages,
and by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, namely, the Tubingen botan-
ist, Joh. Georg Gmelin,1 the astronomer, Louis Delisle de la Croyere (died October
22, 1741), the historian, Gerhard Friedrich Muller,2 and Johann Eberhard Fischer, of
Esslingen.3 The expedition was joined later by Georg Wilhelm Steller 4 and Stephen
Krascheninnikov, who devoted their energies to the exploration of Kamchatka.
A number of minor expeditions were sent at the same time to investigate particular
regions, especially the east coast. In the course of some few years large portions
of Siberia were thoroughly explored, while Bering himself, amidst many dangers
and adventures, cruised on the icy coasts of the sea that was called after him.
He was able to prove the existence of the strait between Asia and America, but
died on December 19, 1741, of scurvy. Muller and Gmelin returned home to St.
Petersburg in 1743, the rest of the expedition not until 1749. Steller had died on
his way back from Kamchatka in 1746. Since this splendidly organised undertak-
ing, the scientific exploration of Siberia has been continuous, although enthusiasm
for the work has sometimes flagged. Especially successful were the geological
researches, which revived the mining industry on the Altai and confirmed the
existence of auriferous strata. Much has been added to our knowledge of the
coasts of Eastern Asia by the voyages of Russian circumnavigators, especially by
those of Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern (1803-1806) and of Otto von
Kotzebue (1815-1818 and 1823-1826). It should be noticed that these voyages
were partly prompted by the wish of Russia to open relations with Japan.
(/3) The Struggle with the Nomads of Southwest Siberia. — The state of things
in the southwest, where a boundless horizon of steppe seemed to bid defiance to
all the permanent and restraining influences of civilization, was very different from
that in the regions of Northern and Eastern Siberia. The southwest was the theatre
of the real struggle between Russia and the nomads, whose eastern representatives
had, at almost this same period, been finally subdued by China. While in the east
the Cossacks showed themselves willing conquerors and settlers, the Russian gov-
ernment itself was forced to undertake the struggle in the southwestern steppe, to
which direction settlers reluctantly turned. After the death of Peter the Great
(1725), who had raised Russia to a great European power, the frontier ran from Kur-
gan to Omsk, and then along the Irtish as far as the spurs of the Altai. The sys-
tem of cordons was introduced by Field-marshal Burkhard Christoph von Mlinnich,
and such a cordon, corresponding roughly to that frontier, was drawn through West
Siberia. For a long time this fortified line was hardly crossed, although the influ-
ence of the Russian power soon produced the result that a large part of the Kirghiz
living further to the south professed their submission. Raids by these " subjects "
into the sphere of the Russian colonies, and corresponding punitive expeditions,
form for nearly a century the scanty history of the possessions in West Siberia.
1 Author of "Flora Sibirica," St. Petersburg, 1748-1749, and "Reise durch Sibirien," Gottingen,
1751-1752.
2 Editor of "Sammlung russischer Geschichte," St. Petersburg, 1758.
8 Author of "Geschichte von Sibirien," St. Petersburg, 1768.
* Author of "Reise von Kamtsohatka nach Amerika" (cf. p. 204), St. Petersburg, 1793.
222 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
It was only after the termination of the Napoleonic wars that attention was
paid once more to Asiatic affairs. The first object clearly was to effect a perma-
nent occupation of the Kirghiz territory by advancing the Russian cordon. For
this purpose the services of the Cossacks were again employed with success. In
this way Kussia entered on a path of conquest which had for its ultimate goal the
subjugation of the turbulent steppe-country and the acquisition of a firm foothold
on its southern margin where permanent settlements existed. Step by step the
troops pushed forward Every fresh advance of the line made the nomads more
desperate. When they saw their freedom of movement curtailed and their pastur-
ages cut off, they broke out in revolt ; and Russia's answer to revolt was in variably
an extension of the fortress cordons. But for a long time it was impossible to
carry out the plan systematically, since large tracts of the steppe were not suited
for permanent settlements. The Russian lines of defence had therefore to rest on
the rivers ; in the year 1847 the southern frontier line ran from the lower Syr
Daria to the river Chu and thence to the Hi. But it was impossible to halt at this
stage. Hitherto the struggle had been with the Kirghiz and other nomad hordes,
but now the sphere of the power of Turkestan was entered. If the Khanates had
been consolidated States, with which a well-defined boundary could have been
arranged, the advance would have been perhaps checked for a long time there, as
was actually the case on the Chinese frontier, with the exception of the districts
on the Amur. But these countries were only centres of power with an ill-defined
sphere of influence, which expanded or contracted according to the energy of the
ruler and the accidents of fortune.
The first collision was with Khiva, since on the west, between the Aral and
the Caspian Seas, a frontier secure against the predatory nomads, who were willing
to act as subjects of Khiva, could only be obtained by the occupation of the Kha-
nate proper. In the year 1839 General Perovsky started from Orenburg, but, after
losing a quarter of his army and ten thousand four hundred camels from snow-
storms in the steppe, he was compelled to return without having set eyes on the
troops of Allah-Kuli Khan. On the other side the first conflicts with Khokaud
occurred in the year 1850, when the men of Khokand, and the Kirghiz who were
subject to them, tried to drive back the Russians from the lower Syr Daria, with
the sole result that the number of Russian fortresses was increased. Fort Perovsk
was built in 1853 as the most advanced post. After a long period of quiet caused
by the Crimean War, the upper Chu valley was occupied from the Hi district in
spite of Khokand. The town of Turkestan fell on June 23, 1864, and Chimkent
on October 4.
In the meantime, however, a war had broken out between Bokhara and Kho-
kand, and when the Russians under Michael Tschernajev took possession of Tash-
kent also (June 29, 1865), which the Bokharians already regarded as a certain
prize, a war between Russia and Bokhara was the natural consequence. After an
uneventful campaign, the Bokharian army was totally defeated by the Russians on
May 20, 1866, near Irjar; and immediately afterwards General Romanovski
marched against the Khanate of Khokand, now a dependency of Bokhara, and took
the town of Khojent. The territory on the Syr Daria, which had been previously
administered from Orenburg, was united in 1867 with the possessions on the Hi
(Semireehansk) into a general government of Turkestan (until 1878). Mozaffar
ed-din of Bokhara, who had been compelled to abandon Khokaud, now made vain
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 223
efforts to conclude an alliance with it against the Kussians. Khiva also refused to
help him, when, urged by the fanaticism of his people, he once more made prepa-
rations to attack the new Russian territory from Samarkand. But before he had
raised his sword, it was struck out of his hand ; General Konstantin von Kaufmann
unexpectedly advanced on Samarkand, defeated the superior forces of the Bokha-
rians, and entered the old capital of Timur on May 14, 1868.
The humbled Khan of Bokhara was forced to abandon the Zarafshan valley
with Samarkand, and so lost one of his best provinces. It was in the end an ad-
vantage for Bokhara that Kussia in this way obtained a well-defined boundary in
the civilized country. This is the only explanation why there was no complete
subjugation, and why the reigning house was left in possession of some, even if
very restricted, powers. Russia subsequently went so far as to support the Emir
of Bokhara (died November 12, 1885) and his son Seyyid Abd ul-Ahad against
insurrections of his subjects.
By their advance into Turkestan the Russians had entered on the region which
since earliest times had commanded the central Asiatic trade and the roads through
the Tarim basin. Although this trade had greatly fallen off, it still appeared to be
an important source of wealth and political influence. Russia had early tried to
establish communications with Yarkand. The revolt of the Dungans and the suc-
cesses of Yakub Bey in the Tarim basin (p. 195) during the sixties had prevented
any direct intercourse with China, which was bound to be the final object of Rus-
sian policy ; the Russians were obliged to content themselves with occupying Kul-
jar, the terminus of the northern road (1871), and with requiring Yakub Bey to
conclude a commercial treaty (1872). Even then the diplomatic rivalry with the
English, who anxiously watched the advance of the Russian power in Central Asia,
and the still independent States of Turkestan, was in full swing. While the Rus-
sians were busy in diverting the trade of the Tarim basin to their possessions, the
English were renewing the old connection between India and that region. Every-
where, in Khokand, Bokhara, and Khiva, English gold was pitted against Russian
bayonets. Gradually, also, China, which after prodigious efforts had suppressed
the revolts of her subjects in the Tarim basin, appeared on the scene as a great
power, with whom definite frontiers could be arranged. Kuljar was restored to
the Chinese at their own wish (p. 110).
Meanwhile in the west the struggle with Khiva had begun afresh, since Seyyid
Mohammed Rahim Khan was neither willing nor able to hinder the incursions of
the Kirghiz and Turkomans into Russian territory. In spring, 1873, the Khanate
was attacked simultaneously from the Caspian Sea and several other directions.
The Khan was not deposed, but was forced on August 12 to abandon the right
bank and the delta of the Amur Daria and become a vassal of Russia. Soon after-
wards the days of the Khanate of Khokand were also numbered ; a revolt, which
caused the prince Khudayar to seek flight (1875), furnished the Russians with a
welcome pretext for interference. Finally, on March 3, 1876, all that was left of
the Khanate of Khokand was incorporated with the Russian Empire as the province
of Ferghana. A condition of things which promised to be stable was thus estab-
lished in the northern and eastern parts of Turkestan ; in front of the Russian ter-
ritory, the nomad inhabitants of which might be considered as subjugated, lay the
Khanates of Khiva and Bokhara, both subject to Russian influence, as a secure belt
of frontier, whose complete incorporation into the dominions of the Tsar could be
of little importance.
224 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
The situation was different in the west, in the steppes between the Caspian
Sea and the Amu Daria. Here marauding Turkoman tribes still roamed without
let or hindrance ; and their nominal suzerain, the Khan of Khiva, was, after his
humiliation by Eussia, less capable than ever of holding them in check. To sub-
due them was only possible if the southern frontier were pushed forward to the
southern margin of the steppe and the Persian sphere of influence. But there was
a twofold inducement for undertaking this laborious enterprise. It was not merely
a question of abating the nuisance of Turkoman marauders; Eussian statesmen
considered the new move as a check to England. The military party avowed their
belief that the surest way of settling the Eastern question in Europe was to frighten
England by advancing to the gates of India. Both military men and civilians
thought that, at the least, an advance was the only means of neutralising hypo-
thetical English intrigues with the native princes of Central Asia. Accordingly,
the Turkomans were attacked, at first by a series of small campaigns, but, these
proving unsuccessful, larger schemes were framed, and attempts were made to
reach the chain of oases which were the real centre of Turkoman power either
from the mouth of the Atrek, or from Krasnovodsk at the foot of the mountains on
the Persian frontier. The first undertaking of this kind failed hi the year 1879.
But a year later a new expedition started, under the command of General Michael
Skobeleff. This time a railway was built simultaneously with the advance of the
troops, the first portion of the subsequent Transcaspian Eailway, which has now
reached Samarkand and opened a new road to international traffic. The fate of
the Turkomans was soon sealed. On January 24, 1881, their strongest fortress,
Geok-Tepe, was taken after a heroic defence, and soon afterward the subjugation
of the northern, or Tekke, Turkomans was complete. In this same year a frontier
treaty with Persia made the fact clear that Eussia had as her neighbour on that
side a State possessing a tolerable degree of culture. Toward the southeast, on
the other hand, the advance of the Eussians did not stop until it reached the
borders of Afghanistan. There was no necessity for further wars against the
nomads : the Turkomans of Merv tendered their submission under diplomatic and
military pressure. In spite of this the Eussians were soon active in the country to
the south of Merv ; and in 1885 their advanced posts came into collision with the
Afghans on the river Kushk, and a battle was fought in which the Afghans were
defeated. The blame for this collision has been thrown by some on England ; it
is alleged that the Afghans were instigated to prevent Eussia from acquiring that
firm position in the south of the steppe country which was a political necessity for
her. Others have accused the Foreign Office at St. Petersburg of having deliber-
ately forced on a breach with Afghanistan. The trouble would seem to be that
the hand of the Eussian government was forced by the zeal of frontier generals.
The questions at issue were settled by a Boundary Commission in 1886-1887, which
fixed the frontier between Afghanistan and Asiatic Eussia. In 1895 the delimita-
tion of English and Eussian spheres of influence was advanced yet another step by
the partition of the mountainous Pamir region, which separates Northeastern Af-
ghanistan from the Tarim basin. Since 1886 the influence of Eussia within her
allotted sphere has been materially increased by the extension of the Transcaspian
Eailway, which has brought districts long desolate within the range of Eussian
commerce, and has completely assured the military supremacy of its possessors.
If we look back on what Eussia has done in Turkestan, we shall see that there
Central Asia~\
and Siberia J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
225
is room for conjecture as to her ultimate policy. Her advance might be explained
solely by the causes which have induced the peaceful Chinese Empire to occupy
the Tarim basin on the verge of the Central Asiatic steppes, were it not that
evidence exists to suggest some motive beyond the mere desire of obtaining security
from the raids of nomad tribes. The first plan for a Eussian invasion of India
was framed as long ago as 1791 ; and similar plans have been considered at various
dates since then, notably in 1800, 1855, and 1876. These plans have usually been
formed with the idea of influencing the European situation to the advantage of
Russia, by locking up English troops in India and inducing England to take a
more conciliatory attitude. In all of them the occupation of Afghanistan has been
an essential feature, and no pains have been spared to detach that country from its
dependence on England. An attempt of this kind in 1878, immediately after the
Treaty of Berlin, was so far successful that the Afghans declared war on England.
But Russia took no steps to assist the Afghans when they had been drawn into the
war ; and since that time Russian influence in Afghanistan has suffered a check.
To judge from recent events the foreign policy of Russia, at the present time, looks
rather toward the Persian Gulf than toward India. The possession of the mouth
of the Euphrates would give Russia one of those outlets for the trade of her empire
which it has always been her prime anxiety to secure.
(7) The Endeavours to obtain a Secure Position on the Pacific (after 1800). —
The occurrences in East Asia have shown that the necessity of obtaining free
access to the ocean can really alter the otherwise clearly marked-out policy of
Russia. While in Central Asia the boundaries between Russia and China, with
the exception of the Kulja country, have hardly been shifted to any appreciable
degree, Russia is recklessly pushing on in the northeast toward China and Korea,
and thus finds herself confronted by the hardest problems of her policy. The
causes of this phenomenon are those which brought about the wars of the Russians
with the Swedes, who commanded the shores of the Baltic, namely, the wish for
a large naval base on the ocean.
When the Russian Cossacks firmly established their position on the sea of
Okhotsk, they suddenly gave a new base to the Russian power, whose centre had
been separated from East Siberia by an infinity of sparsely populated tracts.
However immense the distance by sea might be to the harbours of the Baltic or
the Black Sea, it was, on the whole, easier to surmount than the shorter one, dia-
gonally across Siberia. But apart from this, the possibility of some communication
with the civilized peoples and international trade marts of Central Asia meant a
considerable advantage to the countries on the Pacific. The value of this position
has increased largely since the introduction of steam navigation. On the other
side, it was incontestable that Russia's position on the sea was extraordinarily
unfavourable ; the shores of the sea of Okhotsk with their thinly inhabited hinter-
land, their harbours icebound for many months, and their mountain chains which
rise up directly behind the coast, were far from being adapted to promote a
flourishing commerce. An improvement of the situation could only be attained
by the acquisition of the Amur district ; more favoured harbours were to be found
there, and the valley of a mighty river opened up a comparatively rich hinterland,
and offered easy communications with the interior. Little was to be feared from
the Chinese, who only occupied the right bank of the upper Amur and had neither
VOL. 11 — 15
226 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter u
garrisons nor colonies on the coast. A fresh advance then was made by the
Kussians in the nineteenth century towards the south, which they had already
once partly possessed, but had evacuated owing to the threats of the Manchus.
In the year 1849 the Russian flag was hoisted without opposition at the mouth
of the Amur; in 1851 a bay near the Korean frontier was seized, where later
Vladivostok was founded ; in 1854 a fleet under Count Nikolai Muravier (Amurskij)
was sent from the upper Amur, where the Russians still had possessions from an
earlier date, down to its mouth, and Nikolaievsk, founded there in 1850, was more
strongly fortified. The government in Peking, which did not dare to venture
on war, raised futile protests. By the convention of Aigun (May 28, 1858), the
whole left bank of the Amur was ceded to the Russians, and on November 14,
1860, the Ussuri district together with the whole coast as far as Korea was added
to it.
Since by the founding of Vladivostok an almost ice-free harbour was obtained,
the movements of Russia ceased for some time. But diplomatic intrigues con-
tinued to ruffle the relations of Russia with other powers in this quarter, and
notably with the ambitious State of Japan ; the object at stake in these intrigues
was the preponderance of influence in Korea. The Chinese government favoured
the colonisation of Manchuria as far as possible; but the suppression of strong
bodies of bandits, who had collected in the deserted border provinces, proved a
troublesome task. The successes of Japan in the war of 1894-1895 with China
were a serious check to Russian plans, and proved that the island kingdom of East
Asia had taken its place among the great powers of the world. The Russians now
found themselves inferior to the Japanese at sea, and they were alarmed by an
attempt on the part of their new rivals to seize Southern Manchuria. A counter-
blow was soon delivered. By a treaty concluded with China on March 27, 1898,
Russia occupied Port Arthur and Talienwan on the Gulf of Pechili; and even
before this treaty she had already exacted from China the permission to construct
a railway through Manchuria (September 6, 1896), which was intended to join
the great Trans-Siberian line, begun in the meantime.
Then the situation was suddenly altered by the outbreak of an antiforeign
movement in China, which was aimed with peculiar force against the Russians, and
Russia was driven to occupy Manchuria (1900). The ultimate reason which forced
the Russians to round off their East Siberian dominions by the absorption of
Manchuria may easily be conjectured ; they knew that the Amur country was not
adapted for colonisation on a large scale, and gave the Russian power on the
Pacific no firm support, while Manchuria would completely meet this requirement.
Besides this the ice-free harbour of Port Arthur was of little value to Russia, so
long as it was not in assured command of the hinterland and the overland com-
munications with Siberia. At the same time, indeed, the plan seems to have been
formed of shifting the Russian frontiers forward across the steppes up to China
proper; in other words, of detaching Mongolia and East Turkestan from China.
Russia has in recent times repeatedly formed alliances with the Dalai-Lama (p. 189).
In this way the same policy was adopted in the east and in the heart of Central
Asia which Russia followed in the west as far as the borders of Afghanistan and
the gate of India ; political and economic superiority over China is the natural
consequence to which this policy should lead.
While advantageous frontiers had been thus won by a series of wars, the
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 227
economic situation of Siberia had passed through many phases. The first occupa-
tion had been effected by the Cossacks, who governed as lords among the Hyper-
boreans, exacted the tax known as the yassak, and, without exactly outdoing
Spanish conquistadores in cruelty, were the cause of an extraordinary diminution
in the population; frequent revolts of the natives (for example, in 1731 in
Kamchatka) hastened this result. Even after affairs had been more satisfactorily
organised, the shrinkage of the native population continued. S. Patkanoff, who
made a searching investigation into the condition of the Irtish-Ostiaks, calls atten-
tion to the low birth-rate among the natives, which in itself must, so soon as the
rate of mortality increases, cause the numbers of the inhabitants to become sta-
tionary or shrink. The diseases introduced by Europeans, especially smallpox and
typhus, have produced terrible and permanent gaps in the population. Still more
disastrous is the effect of alcohol, not only from the degeneracy and vice which
it brings with it, but perhaps still more because the drunken mothers neglect their
children and let them die. Finally there are the economic changes, such as the
diminution of wild animals and consequent scarceness of food, and the intrusion of
Eussian peasants into the Ostiak communities ; so soon as the Eussians are in the
majority, they make use of the existing common land for their own advantage, and
appreciably reduce the earnings of the natives. The consequences are pauperism,
non-payment of taxes, and serfdom for debtors, and all these causes unfavourably
affect the increase of the population. Nevertheless decadence is not so rapid
that we may not anticipate, under an amelioration of the conditions, a change for
the better, since on the whole the Ostiaks have shown some capacity of adapting
themselves to the requirements of an advanced civilization. The state of things
existing among most of the tribes of North Siberia will be much the same.
The Eussians, apart from the Cossacks, who poured into Siberia, were still less
calculated to carry out a systematic colonisation and to settle in the zone suitable
to agriculture. Partly to remedy this disadvantage, partly on other grounds, it
became customary by the middle of the seventeenth century to send criminals
to Siberia, as well as to force prisoners of war, especially Poles, to settle there.
The unruly and Cossack-like features of the national life in Siberia were still
more accentuated by this, and for a long time healthy development was checked.
A second hindrance was the tendency of officials to regard the country as a mere
source of profit to themselves, for the improvement of which no means were avail-
able. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the reformed methods
of Western government were applied to neglected Siberia. The settlement of free
peasants, which had been tried before, was now resumed on a more systematic
basis, although it did not always meet with the anticipated success. The trade
route from China to Eussia ran through the zone of Siberian civilization, and
a great part of the settlers found it more remunerative to devote themselves
to trade or the carrying industry than to clear the forests and cultivate the
soil, since the roving tradesman and carrier could better avoid the extortions of
the officials. The short period of energetic reform inaugurated by Michael
Speransky (1819-1821) did much to ameliorate these conditions. The mining
industry, especially in the Altai, where it was only needful to revive the habits of
the past and appeal to the traditions of an older civilization, did much to revive
the prosperity of Siberia. How neglected and on the whole unexplored the greater
part of Siberia nevertheless remained, may be gathered from the fact that even in
228 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter n
the agricultural zone of Siberia new settlements often remained for years unknown
to the officials, until they were eventually discovered and included in the tax-
paying community. The country has at last been more thoroughly opened up
through the devoted energy of many, and mainly German, scientists. The intel-
lectual life of Siberia made very slow progress, although the great number of edu-
cated exiles had its effect. The founding of the University of Tomsk in the year
1888 had a beneficial influence, and was followed on December 31, 1900, by the
opening of the first Siberian polytechnic. The first school for secondary studies
in East Siberia was opened in November, 1899, at Vladivostok.
The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects the east with
the west and also for the first time gives a proper support to the strong position
of Russia on the Pacific, long secured by a systematic organisation of the Amur
district, must be of vital importance for all periods of the development of Siberia.
The commencement of the railway was ordered by an imperial Ukase of March 29,
1891. The line starts from Cheliabinsk on the southern Ural and traverses
Western Siberia at about the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, touches Omsk, Tomsk, and
Krasnoyarsk, then takes a bend to the southeast to Irkutsk, coasts the lake
of Baikal, passes diagonally across Transbaikalia, then runs on the left bank
of the Amur down stream as far as Khabarovka. and finally turns westward to
Vladivostok. Pending the entire completion of the line the sections already
in existence are connected by steamboat services on Lake Baikal and the Amur.
This great undertaking has been supplemented by the Eastern Chinese Railway,
which starts from the upper waters of the Amur, traverses Manchuria, and
will in due course be extended to Port Arthur and Talienwan. The construction
of the railroad has been begun simultaneously at various points, among others
from Vladivostok on the Pacific, where the present emperor, Nicholas II, then
the heir to the throne, turned the first sod on May 19, 1891. At the beginning
of 1902, since the difficult section round the southern shore of Lake Baikal
had been completed in 1901, the permanent way of the gigantic undertaking
was roughly complete.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century the colonisation of Siberia with
free Russian immigrants had made immense strides, a result indirectly due to
the extraordinary increase of the population in the once so sparsely inhabited
continent of European Russia. The commencement of the railway had a stimu-
lating effect, since it was then possible to export agricultural produce on a larger
scale, as the western section of the line traversed the fertile black-earth region.
In 1800 the European population of Siberia amounted roughly to half a million.
The slow rate of growth in the first half of the nineteenth century was somewhat
quickened after 1861, the year of the abolition of serfdom, and then increased
its pace rapidly. From 1860-1880 the number of free immigrants amounted
to one hundred and ten thousand ; between 1880-1892, four hundred and sixty-
seven thousand new colonists settled there, and between 1892-1899 a million
persons or more sought homes in Siberia. The first railroad (Perm-Ekaterinburg-
Tiumen), which crossed the Ural in the year 1881, produced a great influx of
colonists. A law has been in force since 1889, which guarantees to every man
who immigrates, with permission of the government, fifteen dessiatines (about
forty acres) of land as his own, three years' exemption from taxation, and nine
years' exemption from military service. Even more advantageous terms are offered
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 229
to immigrants in the provinces on the Amur and the Pacific. Most settlements
spring up naturally along the railway under the direction of the Siberian Eailroad
Committee, which at the same time builds churches and schools and promotes in
every way the interests of the colonists. The use of the water-ways has, however,
not been neglected ; for example, the fleet of steamers on the Obi has increased in
the years 1880-1898 from thirty-seven to one hundred and twenty vessels. Thus
a movement is visible on every side, which in spite of all possible reverses cannot
but exercise a profound influence on the future of Northern Asia and indirectly
on that of Central Asia.
Siberia will certainly not be spared grave economic crises. It is already clear
that the work of colonisation has been carried out prematurely and in unsuitable
regions. While masses of pauper emigrants continually stream into Siberia from
the famine-stricken districts of Kussia, they are already met by another stream
of starving and disillusioned wanderers who are returning to their old soil.
Besides all this, agriculture in Siberia, whether practised near the Arctic frontier
in the old forest area or in the steppe districts, is threatened more than elsewhere
by the severity of the climate. Even the colonists of the Amur district had
to contend with unexpected difficulties.
There is apparently a wish to abandon the very dubious method of populating
the country by settlements of criminals or political suspects. In the year 1899
the Tsar Nicholas II invited a commission to give an opinion as to the advisa-
bility of discontinuing transportation to Siberia. This is the beginning of the end
of a practice which has given an unfortunate aspect to the character of Siberian
colonisation and of the newly created national life. The custom of sending polit-
ical offenders out of Eussia to Siberia has obtained from an early period ; the
first authentic case occurred in 1599. The country has been dotted with penal
colonies of ordinary criminals since 1653 ; but by the side of these, a large
number of capable and intelligent men, who had merely become inconvenient
to the government, have been at all times removed to the Far East. The further
destinies of the exiles concerned nobody ; the majority probably died there.
Others on the contrary furthered the cause of civilization by their efforts to obtain
means of subsistence for themselves ; exiles gave the first impetus to the mining
industry on the Altai. It was not until 1754 that regulations were made as to the
settlement and employment of the exiles by which two classes of banished were
distinguished, namely, the criminals condemned to hard labour (Katorga), and
the deported colonists (Posselenie). In the nineteenth century the Decabrist
rebellion of 1825 (Vol. VIII), the Polish insurrections of 1830-1832 and 1863,
and the Nihilist movement, brought again a large number of educated men to
Siberia. It is difficult to estimate the influence of the exiles on the development
of Siberia ; in any case it would be wrong to describe it merely as unfavourable.
The abolition, moreover, of the transportation laws, which were perhaps most dis-
astrous for Eussia itself, will inaugurate for Siberia also an era of economic moral
and spiritual improvement.
230 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chafer in
III
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
BY PROFESSOR DR. KARL WEULE
1. INTRODUCTORY EEMARKS
THERE can be no doubt that the southeast part of Australia, together with the adja-
cent island of New Zealand, is destined some day to rule the whole Oceanic half of the
world. — C. E. MEINICKE, 1836.
CONTRARY to the customary French nomenclature, which includes under
the collective name of Oceania the continent of Australia together with
the whole immense world of islands in the Pacific Ocean, so far as it
does not belong to Indonesia and the eastern border of Asia, the Ger-
mans do not accept this extended meaning of the word, but divide the vast region
into two halves, by distinguishing between the Australian continent and an Oceania
in a more restricted sense, comprising only the island groups of Polynesia, Micro-
nesia, and Melanesia. This division is based equally on geographical grounds and
on those of anthropology and ethnology; it expresses the contrast between the
compact mass of the Australian continent and the world of islands spread over
a vast space but containing a quite trifling superficial area. It also indicates the
truth that the population of these islands, whatever diversities it may reveal to the
eye of the anthropologist, is ethnologically homogeneous and entirely different from
the population of the Australian continent.
It would hardly have been necessary for the writing of history, so far as there
can be any idea of such when dealing with the native races of the South Sea, that
this example should be followed. There is a difference, it is true, between the
history of the insular and the continental peoples, in so far as the development of
culture reached, on the whole, higher stages among the former than in Australia.
Beside that, a small number at least of archipelagoes can look back on a certain
independent political growth. In both these respects, the mainland, so far as the
aborigines are concerned, is far behind ; in fact, it shows absolutely no trace of any
real development in a political sense. Notwithstanding all this, the difference is
not so fundamental as to necessitate a partition of the whole region. This would
be imperative, so soon as one or the other of the divisions definitely intruded into
the turmoil of universal history, or when one was influenced by this in a con-
spicuously greater degree than the other. But neither alternative has happened.
As a matter of fact the separate history of the whole vast region, from New Zea-
land in the south to Hawaii in the north, and from New Guinea and the Caroline
Islands in the west to Easter Island in the east, is characterised by a remarkable
isolation. Only on the extreme western margin of this region, in the Marianne,
Caroline, and Pelew groups, in Western New Guinea and Northwestern Australia,
do we find instances of brief and involuntary intercourse with the neighbouring
Australia and~l
Oceania,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
231
and more aggressive races of Asia and Indonesia. These exceptions apart, both
Oceania and Australia have played a minor and self-centred part in history.
If under these circumstances we retain the usual two great divisions, we do so
from the following reasons. First, for a reason not connected with our own sub-
ject : this division is preserved by the sciences of geography and ethnology, which
are closely akin to history ; and one branch of science ought never, without con-
vincing reasons, to repudiate the classifications which are recognised in other
branches. There is the less object in doing so since we have waited a long
time before we have attained any clear or satisfactory classification. A
second reason is found in the above-mentioned contrasts in degrees of cul-
tures and political self- development between the two principal regions. Under
this head it is especially the great core of the island world with Fiji, Samoa,
and Tonga, and the pillars on the north and south in the shape of Hawaii
and New Zealand, which claim peculiar attention owing to their individual
historical development. The last and most weighty argument for the division of
the whole region is connected with the changes which have been effected in the
South Sea by encroachments from outside. At the present day the original popu-
lation, — and it does not matter whether it had ever previously reached the stage
of making history, or whether, as in Australia, it led an obscure existence as a
primitive race of hunters, — has been covered by a new and foreign stratum of
Europeans, Americans, Malays, and Eastern Asiatics, which is barely a few cen-
turies old. These have assumed everywhere in the Pacific the task of colonisation
and simultaneously the r6le of political and industrial leaders. But while none
of the several groups of islands have been able, owing to their small size, to
attain an importance which might raise them politically or economically far above
their circle of neighbours, and each of them is rather regarded, at all times, by
the interested powers as a no-man's land which may be made useful as a stra-
tegic base in the Pacific, the case is different with Australia. This great continent,
under the rule of European immigrants, has shown a development which at the
present day, only one century after the beginning of its colonisation, prevents it
from being compared in any respect with the island world.
The main difference lies in the complete, though easily explicable, refusal of
the Australian colonists to enlist the services of the aborigines. These have not
allowed themselves to be ignored on any of the island groups. On the small
islands of Micronesia and Polynesia, where the colonising energy of the whites
was limited to the exportation of the few natural products suitable for inter-
national trade, the assistance of the native or the imported Oceanian was indispen-
sable. On the main groups, the Fiji, Samoan, and Tonga Islands, the comparatively
large population showed itself as uninterested in the industrial efforts of the white
men as the aborigines of the Australian continent ; but, politically, they derived
the most important suggestions from their contact with strangers. Before the
arrival of the explorer in Oceania no State extended beyond the limits of a single
island ; often there was no political organisation. But in the nineteenth century
each separate group coalesced into a more or less united State; until the most
recent times the government of these federated groups remained in native hands.
New Zealand and finally Hawaii had prepared the way for this step even before
the intrusion of the whites, and they carried it out with remarkable energy, until
eventually in quite modern times the united efforts of the intruders succeeded in
232 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
levelling the laboriously reared political edifice and placing the aborigines com-
pletely in the background. Although these, in view of their past achievements and
their former advanced civilization, will never sink into such insignificance as the
Australians, yet their role in history is ended. The future development of the two
island groups lies as completely in the hands of the whites as it has in Australia
since their landing in Botany Bay in 1788. New Zealand, owing to the proximity
of the Australian continent, experienced this change at an earlier time than the
Hawaiian group. Relations between the two countries were soon opened when a
new life and vigour began to stir in Australia, and the connection was gradually
tightened. Only in quite recent days has New Zealand drawn slightly apart, since
it has not joined the Australian Confederation which has at last become an accom-
plished fact. It remains to be seen if this isolated position will be maintained.
From the standpoint of geographical position there is no necessity for union be-
tween New Zealand and its enormous neighbour ; in fact the position is in favour
of standing aloof. After all, there can be no doubt as to the future of New Zea-
land in any case ; its situation facing the broad southern expanse of the Pacific is
so advantageous that the greater part of the later history of the Pacific must be
bound up with New Zealand. Melanesia (see the accompanying map) occupies a
peculiar position toward the whole. If we apply the standard of superficial con-
tents, then the small islands are simply to be ranked with the corresponding for-
mations in Micronesia and Polynesia ; they too are historically insignificant. This
standard is no longer applicable to the groups of wider area, such as the Bismarck
Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. Each
of these, from its size and population, would be suited to play a part in history at
least as important as that of Central Oceania. But what do we find ? Apart
from Fiji, which, from the standpoint of politics rather than of anthropology and
ethnology, shows a Polynesian stamp, none of them has developed any political
constitution which is superior to the village community. There are therefore no-
tangible historical events to be recorded of them. On the other hand the neigh-
bouring Australian has, for the time being, shown a want of perseverance, since
not one of these island groups has been taken in hand by the whites on a large
scale as a focus of civilization. Until this attempt has been once made it is
impossible to ascertain what historical character is peculiar to the Melanesians.
That their prospects of playing a more noteworthy role would be especially good,,
even if they on their part contributed all the necessary preliminaries, can hardly
be asserted, if we consider the existing conditions in the Pacific and the general
political situation. It is due to this latter that the Pacific Ocean is at present the
object of universal interest, and is constantly navigated by the fleets of all colonial
powers. Owing to this the Oceanic island world is far from being the remote part
of the globe's surface which it was some centuries, or even decades, since. The
vigorous economic rivalry of all nations even in these regions must be considered ;
in a word, all circumstances point to the fact that the natives from the first will
have to be content with playing a very subordinate part. The more active and
enterprising Melanesian may under the circumstances save himself from such
repression as has been the fate of the Australian, but on the other hand any com-
bination into larger societies is impossible from the purely material drawback of
the multiplicity of languages ; to say nothing of the boundless distrust with which
one tribe inspires another. These conditions hold good for the island groups, and
ftSS8""1] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 233
in increased force for New Guinea. This gigantic island, which exceeds in size
the Japanese and the British island-empires together, is historically unique, not
only in the Pacific but on the whole surface of the earth; Borneo alone shows
some points of resemblance. Fitted, from its size and apparently from its natural
wealth as well, to dominate the entire system of islands in Indonesia and Oceania,
New Guinea has the initial disadvantage of lying in the immediate vicinity of the
incomparably vaster Australia, and, what is more, of facing the barren part of that
continent. While New Zealand, which lies, as one may say, opposite the fagade
of Australia, has been involved with it in a most happy development, New Guinea
has of all the large islands in the world remained the longest totally neglected.
The most recent encroachments of the modern colonial powers have called atten-
tion to it, but it has had the further misfortune of not being annexed to its natural
neighbour Australia, but of being partitioned among no fewer than three powers
with completely conflicting interests. Although the unnatural character of this
arrangement has not yet caused serious inconveniences, owing to the caution with
which the preliminary steps have been taken, a time will certainly arrive when
the drawbacks of the system will be patent. The part that suffers from this is
in the first place New Guinea itself, but, in the second, Australia. British New
Guinea has indeed the advantage of forming the coast opposite to North Australia,
a position which everywhere and always in the course of the history of mankind
has proved to be profitable. But it turns its face away from the open sea, and thus
stands far behind Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, the German part of New Guinea,
from the point of view of political importance. This circumstance had, however,
been realised by the Anglo-Australian colonies long before the inauguration of
the new colonial age, since they have always rightly estimated the special value
of their geographical situation. They like to call the South Sea " our ocean," and
it is never forgotten how at the first dawn of that period the colony of Queensland
enforced the " natural right of possession " for the whole area, from New Guinea
in the west to Fiji in the south. That inheritance, on which doubts were then
generally cast, has now been accepted by the great Australian Commonwealth.
The sources of our information for the history of Australia and Oceania differ
hi kind and value, according as we deal with the period anterior to or later than
the arrival of the whites. About the modern era, which we may fairly define as
the period from the permanent discovery of the islands to the present day, we
possess on the whole ample information from the accounts of missionaries and
travellers ; but for the whole of the early period no records exist. We find merely
tradition, which does not, however, extend over the whole region, but is limited to
Polynesia ; but there it comes into the foreground in a way that is unparalleled
among primitive peoples. The whole of Polynesian chronology is based upon
generations; separate groups and islands enumerate long series of them. Thus
Earotonga reckons thirty generations ; New Zealand, since the Maori immigration,
fifteen to twenty ; the dynasty of Mangarewa, twenty-seven. Hawaii with the
sixty-seven ancestors of Kamehameha I, and Nukahiva with eighty-eight genera-
tions far exceed these figures ; but in these instances a series of deities and spirits
as ancestors are plainly introduced into the royal succession.
Tradition, from the reasons above mentioned, shows itself to be an obscure,
unimportant, and doubtful source of information, and on other grounds it is only
of qualified interest to us. However interesting its study may be for an exhaustive
234 HISTORY OF THE WORLD c%«, ///
examination of some special district, yet it is entirely immaterial to the general
course of the history of mankind whether on an island lost in the vastness of the
Pacific Ocean a few chiefs more or less of this or that name lived and worked.
The value of their ascertained total merely consists in the possibility which is then
presented of calculating roughly the beginning of tribal life in the islands, and
thus of obtaining some starting-point for the period of the first migrations. The
answer to this question is the pivot of the first and general part of our investiga-
tions devoted to Oceania. The second, and in a narrower sense historical part,
opens everywhere with the appearance of the Europeans. From that era onwards
there are visible traces of reciprocal relations between the South Sea and the rest of
the globe. Ethnology as a coadjutor in the science of history has, if possible, a more
difficult task to perform in Oceania than in Africa (cf. Vol. III). In the fir?t place,
it alone can only give unexceptionable proof of the relations between the separate
great ethnical groups of the region itself ; there is no other method available here
than that of comparative anthropology and ethnology. The second task is more
important and incomparably more difficult, that of elucidating the origin ami affin-
ity of the Polynesians. The solution of this problem, notwithstanding the diligence
of numerous explorers, is still wanting. We may not only hope but assume that
it will in the end be discovered, and mainly by the help of ethnography.
2. AUSTRALIA AND TASMANIA AS PARTS OF THE
INHABITED EARTH
A. AUSTRALIA
(a) The Position of Australia. — The position of Australia, from the standpoint
of the history of the world and of civilization, is best described as terminal or mar-
ginal. In this respect it has many features in common with Africa, and especially
the southern half of Africa. Just as this continent runs out toward the west into
the narrow but almost landless Atlantic, and toward the south into the desolate
and inhospitable Antarctic Ocean, so the mighty waste of waters of the Southern
Indian and Southern Pacific Oceans spreads round the western and southern halves
of Australia. And precisely as the inhabitants of the western and southern sides
have, of all the races in Africa, remained most aloof from the sea, so the correspond-
ing parts of Australia have always been the least attractive to navigators. Even
in the present days of enormous commerce, when the enterprising white man does
not ignore the less alluring districts, the south and southwest of Australia are far
behind the other parts of the country in every respect. Australia is only shut off
from the open sea upon the east ; we there find large clusters of islands, which, on
the map at least, produce the impression of a dense mass. But, in reality the area
of these eastern islands is nothing in comparison with the expanse of ocean and the
continent ; and leaving New Zealand out of the question, they cannot, with their
diminutive superficial size, be considered as having influenced Australia in the past.
Australia is thus the most insular of all continents. It would appear completely
free and detached from the other continental land masses, were it not for the dense
Indonesian group which lies to the northwest, and forms a connecting link with
the southeast coast of Asia. This group contains larger islands than its Oceanic
£*£•<«<] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 235
continuation ; it is also more densely packed, so that it seems admirably adapted as
a bridge for migrations. And it has undoubtedly served such purpose. In the case
of certain plants and animals, the migration from Asia to Australia can be proved,
and it is extremely probable that the ancestors of the Australian native tribes crossed
the Indonesian bridge.
If we consider Australia under these circumstances a part of the Old World, we
are certainly treating the question rightly ; only, this conclusion is less frequently
based by historians on the facts of geography, zoology, and botany, than upon the
evidence of native culture and institutions, which are entirely borrowed from the
civilization of the Old World. But the first argument is more interesting and his-
torically more far-reaching, since it brings into our field of view not only Australia,
but also all Oceania, which is, much more obviously than Australia, connected
with the Asiatic continent. The path from Asia to both regions is almost precisely
the same.
The marginal situation of Australia has produced on its aboriginal inhabitants
all the effects which we find in every primitive nation in the same or a similar posi-
tion. The whole development of their culture bears the stamp of isolation. The
disadvantageous position of the continent is by no means balanced by variety of in-
ternal conformation. The coast line compares favourably in extent with those of
South America and Africa when the greater superficial area of these two continents
is taken into account. So with the number of its peninsulas, Australia fares better
than those two continents, as a glance at the map, p. 232, will show. But what
profit do the natives derive from these very slight advantages, if the islands and
peninsulas are as sterile, inaccessible, and desolate as most of the coast districts and
the greater part of the interior itself ?
(&) The Physical Characteristics of Australia. — The physical characteristics
of Australia show at the first glance a great poverty and monotony. The continent,
according to its vertical configuration, is a vast plateau, rising in the east, and sink-
ing in the west, which slopes away from north to south. This table-land is only
fringed by mountain ranges on its edges. A chain of mountains runs along the
east coast from the southern extremity, which follows the coast line at a varying
though never great distance, until it ends in Cape York. From this great water-
shed the land gradually slopes away in a southwesterly direction to the Indian
Ocean, seamed by a few detached ranges and mountains, which rise to a consider-
able height in isolated masses. The western coast range is not so high as the
eastern ; but, in contrast to the latter, it is prolonged into the interior as a table-land,
which abounds in extensive salt marshes and stretches far into the centre of the
country. On the south and north there is no such high ground bordering the coast
and turning inwards. Some half century ago, this high ground played an impor-
tant part in the current theories as to the interior, since its assumed existence neces-
sarily required the interior to be an enormous basin, in which the rivers from all
sides united their waters in a large inland sea. We know now that the north rises
so gradually from the sea to the interior that the rivers, in consequence of their
gentle and uniform fall, overflow their banks far and wide after every heavy down-
pour of tropical rain. There is still less difference of height observable between
the interior and the south coast. The lake district, which runs in a long line from
Spencer Gulf to the north and northwest, lies almost on the level of the sea.
236 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chap* m
(c) The Hydrography of Australia. — The hydrography of Australia is inti-
mately connected with the physical characteristics of the country. Not one of its
mountains is high enough to form among perpetual snows a reservoir for the
constant supply of the rivers ; but the principal, and from its position the most
important range, that of the east coast, is high enough to divert the atmospheric
moisture from the remaining parts of the continent. The existing conditions are
precisely similar to those in South Africa, which geographically and ethnographi-
cally has many points of affinity with Australia. Just as the curving ranges of
the east coast of Africa collect on their wild and rugged flanks all the aqueous
vapour of the southeast trade-wind blowing from the Indian Ocean, so the mois-
ture contained by the Pacific southeast trade-wind does not go beyond the limits of
the high grounds of East Australia ; this is a blessing for the colonies of Victoria,
New South Wales, and Queensland, where the economic and political centre of
gravity of the whole continent must always lie, but a curse for the whole of the
rest of the interior.
As a result of this restricted area of rainfall, there is no river system of im-
portance, except that of the Murray and its tributary, the Darling, on the east of
the continent. This testifies to the absence of any watershed in the interior, in so-
far as its sources comprise the whole western slopes of the East Australian coast
range from New South Wales to Queensland. Measured by a European standard,
the region included by the two rivers embraces a triangle, the angles of which would
be formed by the towns of Turin, Konigsberg, and Belgrade. We are concerned,
therefore, with measurements such as Europe can only show in its eastern half at
most. The real value both of these rivers and of most of the rest in Australia,
whether rapid or stagnant, does not unfortunately accord with the figures. The
Darling, indeed, is by far the longer but shallower arm, which only becomes-
navigable after great floods, and can then be ascended by steamers of small
draught as far as the point where it cuts the thirtieth degree of southern latitude.
Even the Murrumbidgee, the right tributary of the Murray, is only open to navi-
gation some months in the year. The Murray alone is available at all times for
the objects of commerce, but only since a great and lasting interest has been
taken in the regulation of its channels.
In the north and northeast, owing to the heavier rainfall, there is less scarcity
of water. We find there numerous watercourses of considerable breadth, of which
quite a number are navigable for a short distance inland. But they do not open
up the interior of the country itself. Only the still little known streams of the
northern territory, the Roper, the Daly, and the Victoria, seem to form a notable
exception, since they can be ascended by large vessels for a very considerable
distance.
In contrast to this, the prospect throughout the west and south, and in the
interior is very disheartening. We find, indeed, numerous and apparently large
watercourses on the map, but not in reality. The name of a river in those parts
is given to channels which either lie quite dry for the greater part of the year, or
tinder the most favourable conditions consist of a chain of broad ponds, which are
divided by banks and never connected after their formation. These beds only
become real watercourses at the time of the summer rains ; but then they swell to
such a size that the overflow does no good to the land. The torrents then rush
down many feet deep, only to disappear in the ever-thirsty ground after a short
£££""«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD HI
course and a still shorter time, and thus once more to make room for the old order
of things. Australia, like Africa, is the land of contrasts. The south coast does
not even enjoy the doubtful advantage of such streams ; it is, on the contrary, as
far as the mouth of the Murray entirely devoid of any river worth mentioning. It
is sufficiently obvious that such a lack of uniformity in the water supply of the
continent must have the most far-reaching effects on all its phenomena of life.
The abrupt change from complete drought to a deep flood which destroys all life
is in itself sufficient to reduce wide tracts to wildernesses, and all the more so
since the numerous lakes are subject to the same variations. Ethnographically,
however, and therefore in a wider sense historically, more important than this
change is the permanent characteristic of Australia, the marvellous drought,
which prevails over the whole continent as far as the tropical regions of it, and is
only made more apparent by the rarity and short duration of the rainfall. This
drought is in the first place the cause of the barrenness of the countiy, and in the
next place it obliges the natives to be continually migrating if they wish to find
sufficient food. Finally, it is the cause why these unsettled migratory bands can
never attain any size, if, indeed, the scanty supplies of the soil are to be enough to
feed them. The consequence is that the Australians are split up into a number
of small tribes or hordes, among whom no traces of national life can be discovered.
Their gradual disappearance without leaving any mark on history is a necessary
sequel. Nor does this main feature of the hydrography of Australia limit its
effects to the natives only ; it has, on the contrary, exercised a marked influence on
the density of colonisation by the whites. In the parts of the countiy remote
from the coast the colonist, precisely as in sub-tropical South Africa, required
ample room, and it is no mere coincidence that the colonies of Australia were
everywhere founded in the more fertile coast districts.
(d) The Australian Climate. — The characteristic feature of the Australian
climate is its dryness. The country from its position between the tenth and
fortieth degrees of southern latitude is for the most part, and unfortunately
throughout its whole length, included in the region of the southern trade-winds.
In addition to this, there is the second disadvantage which we have already
mentioned, that the highest ranges of mountains are found on the weather side of
the continent ; the result of which is that the main portion of the country is
sheltered from wind and rain. If, under these circumstances, the interior is not
such a sandy waste as the Sahara, the centre of the North African trade-wind
region, Central Australia owes this merely to the excessive heating of its soil and
the openness of the north coast. The former produces, in summer especially, an
extensive Central Australian zone of low pressure, which gives rise to a rain-
bringing northwest monsoon, and draws it far into the continent, sometimes even
to the south coast. Unfortunately this wind, in the extent of the regions over
which it passes and in its effect on the climate, is far inferior to the southeast
trade-wind, under the dominion of which many tracts are for months without any
rain whatever. The west, which it reaches after all moisture has been deposited,
suffers peculiarly from this drawback.
The conditions of the rainfall in Australia go by extremes. " It never rains
but it pours " is the saying of the settlers, which aptly characterises the way in
which the water pours down from the clouds ; in Sydney, on one occasion, ten
238 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
inches of rain, a quarter, that is to say, of the annual rainfall, fell in two hours
and a half. The vegetation of the country is nowhere sufficient to store up such
volumes of water ; they rush away, doing more or less havoc, are immediately
sucked up by the ever-thirsty earth, and then make way for as parching a drought
perhaps as had previously prevailed.
The temperatures also are no exception to this general description. The
vicinity of the sea modifies the extremes on the coast regions ; yet in Perth, for
example, a maximum temperature of 113° Fahrenheit is contrasted with a minimum
temperature of 24° Fahrenheit. The interior, however, is completely subject to a
pronounced continental climate ; there the thermometer during the day rises to
120° Fahrenheit, while at night the pools are covered by a thick coating of ice; for
night represents winter in Australia. However easy it has been for the Euro-
pean immigrant to adapt himself to these climatic peculiarities, the aborigine
has always been helpless in face of them. In addition to anxious care for his
daily food, and above all for the life-giving water, he is met, in the sub-tropical
regions at any rate, by a second and not less serious anxiety about a shelter from
the weather. Certainly, for a creature so dependent on nature as the Austra-
lian, the combination of these three cares is sufficient to divert the thoughts of
even the most intelligent among them from any higher intellectual occupation.
(e) The Vegetation of Australia. — The vegetation of his native soil only assists
the Australian to a limited extent in his struggle for existence, yet he owes more
to it than to the animal kingdom. The Australian flora is like that of all steppe
regions, rich in varieties, of which it affords, for example, more than Europe ; but
in its general characteristics of dryness, stiffness, and want of sap it is quite on a
keeping with the pervading nature of the country. These features belong to the
Australian trees with their stiff, ever green yet dull and lustreless, foliage and their
scanty shade ; they are still more emphatically peculiar to the typical Australian
growth of " scrub," that dense gray tangle of stubborn, sapless bushes, which is
hard to destroy even by burning and presents more obstacles to the advance of
the explorer than the most luxuriant vegetation of the tropics. The characteristic
of stiffness and dryness is found in every blade of the notorious Australian spinifex
or porcupine-grass plains with their dry, sharp-edged grasses. And lastly we find it
most conspicuously in those districts seamed with sandhills, salt plains, and stony
tracts, where the steppe becomes a desert, and where only the extraordinary abun-
dance of certain grasses and thorns succeeds in keeping the soil from being abso-
lutely bare.
These different forms of vegetation have totally different effects upon the popu-
lation. From the point of view of moving from one place to another, the forest
and the grass steppe are contrasted with the scrub and the spinifex steppe. The
forest, or, as it would be more correctly called, the Australian heath, with its
tree trunks standing far apart and its want of underwood, has never offered any
obstacle to the wanderings of the natives or the whites. On the contrary, with the
vigorous growth of grass which has been able to spring up unchecked everywhere
between the smooth, branchless stems, it has formed a carpet over which the
settler could march to the tempting pasture grounds of the hinterland. The eco-
nomic centre of gravity of the continent lies, even at the present day, in these open
forests and meadow-like districts, which are limited to the southeast and the northern
SSS""*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 239
parts of the interior ; indeed, cattle-breeding, the most extensive and important of
Australian industries, entirely depends on them.
The two other forms of vegetation have nothing of this. It is a known fact
that the impenetrability of the scrub is one of the chief causes why the exploration
of Australia has proceeded so slowly. The boldest travellers have wandered for
weeks and months round the enormous thickets without finding a path through the
stubborn mass. So, too, the boundless spinifex plains, with their pleasing aspect,
which recalls waving fields of ripe corn, form anything but a pleasant road. The
stalks, from their dryness and stiffness, are unsuited for fodder, and the leaves are
so sharp that they draw blood from the legs of the traveller. All traffic through
these districts, therefore, has been abandoned. Economically also, neither kind
of country concerns the European for the present. It is true that for some
time very successful attempts have been made to increase the value of the dryer
grass steppes by a system of wells, and without doubt in the future the feasibility
of cultivating the steppes now overgrown with scrub and porcupine grass will
be considered. But it appears problematical whether the labour expended will
repay itself. The native has nothing to hope from either kind of country. They
have both been always inaccessible to him and in the future will secure for him
neither a shelter nor a livelihood. With food plants of all kinds the native has
not been so stingily provided by the continent as the older accounts would seem
to say. The bulbs so characteristic of steppe countries are indeed insignificant in
Australia ; but in their place the native, who is certainly not fastidious, has at his
disposal numerous other roots, various wild kinds of corn, mushrooms, berries, and
blossoms, so that there can be no question of any actual lack of food. But the
niggard nature of the country does not make it easy for him to obtain these crops,
any more than it will ever allow the white settler to bring agriculture into the first
rank of industries in place of cattle-breeding.
(/) The Animal Life of Australia. — The Australian has been most inade-
quately endowed with a native fauna. As one might expect from the general
physical features of the continent, it is limited; but it has become a matter of
grave importance for the native that it has not provided him with a single domestic
or useful animal. The few animals that might be thought of for such purposes, are
all considered too wild. The dingo, the only mammal available for domestication,
was in all probability, introduced in a domesticated state and has since become wild.
In addition to this, hunting, owing to the fleetness of all animals of the chase, is a
very difficult undertaking for the aborigine armed with inadequate weapons ; none
even of the numerous well-equipped European expeditions have ever been able to
provide themselves with food by this means. The nocturnal habits of an unusually
large number of animals greatly increase the difficulty of catching them. This
difficulty, insuperable for the aborigines, the European has met in the best possible
way by introducing European domestic animals. They have all succeeded admi-
rably, have multiplied to an astounding degree, and now represent a most valuable
part of the national property, in fact, together with the mineral output, cattle-
breeding has contributed the largest share to the marvellously rapid development
of the colonies.
(g) Australia's Mineral Wealth. — Even the mineral wealth of the country has
entirely failed to affect the position of the native. He, like the Bushman of South
240 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
Africa, has never gone so far as to employ any metal in its crude state, but meets
the European as a fully developed man of the Stone Age, or in some degree of a
yet earlier stage. The whites have set about all the more vigorously to make use of
the mineral treasures of Australia. The opening of the gold fields about the middle
of the nineteenth century certainly marks the most crucial chapter in the history of
the colonies. Even now, when the "gold fever" has long since given way to a
normal temperature, the mining industry has all the greater importance for the
development of Australia and its position in the great future which we may antici-
pate for the Pacific Ocean, because its wealth in other useful minerals, especially
in coal and iron, is undisputed. The east, in all things the favoured region, in this
respect also retains its natural superiority, since it possesses the most extensive
coal-fields. The history of the continent will thus in the future point more
decisively and distinctly toward the east and the north than hitherto.
B. TASMANIA
THE natural features of Tasmania call for little remark. In the conformation
of its surface, a direct continuation of the coast range of East Australia, it re-
sembles in its flora and fauna also the southeast of the continent. On these and
above all on geological grounds it cannot be separated from the mainland, in com-
parison with which, however, it is singularly favoured by climate. Tasmania has
neither abrupt contrasts of heat and cold nor an uncertain supply of water ; a
comparatively large rainfall is distributed over the whole year, and the tempera-
ture has only the range of a genial and temperate maritime climate. There is an
abundant and perpetual supply of water both running and stagnant, and Tas-
manian vegetation is of a luxuriance such as on the mainland is found only in the
more favoured parts of Victoria. Tasmania really deserves the name of " Australia
Felix," which was formerly given to the southeastern portion of the mainland. It
may appear at the first sight astonishing that from such a favourable foundation
the aborigine has not mounted to any higher stage of culture than the Australian,
but the explanation is not far to seek. In the first place, owing to the close
affinity of the Tasmanian and the Australian, the intellectual abilities of the two
races are on a par. Even in the domain of ethnical psychology, the law of inertia
holds good ; the better conditions of life enjoyed by the Tasmanian are balanced
by the greater isolation and seclusion of his country. The forest and the sea,
which runs far inland in numerous creeks, have furnished the native with a more
ample diet ; but an opposite coast, which might be the transmitter or source of
new achievements in culture, was more completely wanting there than even in the
case of Australia. The coasts of the mainland were out of the question as pro-
moters of culture ; and the Tasmanian only navigated the sea to the most modest
extent ; longer voyages would only have brought him to a wilderness of water.
3. THE POPULATION OF AUSTEALIA AND TASMANIA
WHAT, then, is the state of the inhabitants of these countries, whose external
conditions have just been sketched as guides to the historical development, and of
the makers of their history ? What place do the primitive inhabitants take in the
circle of mankind ? Are they autochthonous in their land, or have they immi-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 241
grated ? Have they kinsmen, and, if so, where ? And what, lastly, is the compo-
sition of the modem non-native population of the continent ? We will endeavour
to answer these questions.
A. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL POSITION OF THE AUSTRALIANS
A SATISFACTORY consensus of opinion now prevails as to the anthropological
position of the Australians. The similarity of their methods of life, the uni-
formity of their attainments in culture and of their habits, and to some degree the
identity of the languages might lead to the erroneous view that they are a homo-
geneous race, which cannot be grouped with the Malayan or Papuan. Anthropo-
logical investigation has now proved that this homogeneousness does not exist, and
that the native population of Australia represents, on the contrary, a mixture of at
least two very distinct elements. This view finds corroboratiou in the differences
of the colour of the skin and the formation of the hair, and also of the shape of
the face. The colour of the skin varies from a true yellow to a velvety black with
numerous intermediate degrees, among which the dark-brown tint is far the most
common colouring. The hair, too, with a prevalent tendency to curl, ranges from
the true straight-haired type to the complete woolly-haired type of the negro.
The shape of the face and skull, finally, shows a multiplicity of differences, such as
cannot be greater even in nations proved to be largely mixed with foreign blood.
The flat negro nose on the one side, and the typical Semitic nose on the other, form
the extremes here. It is thus clearly established that a dark, woolly-haired race
and a light, straight-haired race shared in the ancestry of the Australian. But
where, then, was their original home ? Both races obviously could not be autoch-
thonous at the same time ; indeed, the nature of the continent seems to exclude
the possibility that it was the cradle even of one race. Whence, therefore, did the
two elements of admixture come, and which is the earlier on the new soil ?
A key to this problem we find even at the present day on the north coast of
Australia, in the still existing trade of the Malays with the northwest, and in the
immediate vicinity of New Guinea with a Papuan population, which also has a
predilection for crossing the group of islands of the Torres Straits to the south.
For the migration of the Papuan-Melauesian, or, in more general terms, of the
negroid element, no other path than that by New Guinea can be thought of. But
two roads were open to the Malayan ; the direct road from the Indian archipelago,
which even at the present day maintains a connection with Australia, and the
de'tour by Polynesia. We have no evidence that this second one was used ; but
we know now from the ethnography of New Guinea that its population had a dis-
tinct infusion of Malayan-Polynesian blood. But what in the case of New Guinea
is demonstrable fact lies in the case of Australia within the range of probability,
since the conditions of access to both countries from Polynesia are practically
identical.
The question of priority sinks into the background compared with the solution
of the main problem. An answer also is barely possible, since the migration from
both sides to Australia must not be regarded as an isolated event, but as a con-
tinuous or frequently recurring movement. A certain coincidence of time is under
the circumstances to be assumed.
From another standpoint also the question of priority gives way before that of
VOL. II — 1C
242 HISTORY OF^THE WORLD [chapter m
the predominance of the one or the other element. The point, briefly put, is to
ascertain clearly the causes of the wonderful inability of the modern Australian
to navigate the sea, — a peculiar defect, which has prevented him from settling not
only on the more remote of the coasts which face Australia, but even on the neigh-
bouring islands, with the exception of Tasmania, to which access was facilitated by
the crowded group of islands in the Bass Strait. When we see how the negroes
and all the dusky remnants of nations on the southern margin of Asia feel the
same dread of the sea, and when we reflect that the nature of his present home
has induced the Melanesian to become a navigator, although he is far removed
from being a true seaman, we must at once entertain the conjecture that it is the
negroid blood in his veins that fetters the Australian so firmly to the sod. Up to
a certain point this conjecture is doubtless correct, for the law of heredity holds
good in the domain of ethnical psychology. It is impossible, however, to make
Papuan ancestry alone responsible for this peculiarity ; it has not hindered the
Melauesians from arriving, under favourable circumstances, at a fair degree of
proficiency in navigation. If the Australian has failed to do the same, it is partly
because Lis circumstances have made him unfamiliar with the sea.
The full force of this second cause is apparent when we consider the nature of
the country, and the extent to which the economic basis of the Australian native's
life is narrowed by the poverty and inhospitable character of his surroundings.
He who must devote every moment in the day to the task of providing food and
drink for his body, and is forced to roam unceasingly as he follows his fleeting
quarry from place to place, has neither the time nor the inclination to retain or to
develop an accomplishment like navigation, which requires constant practice, and
which does not at first seem necessary in a new country. And even if the ances-
tral Malayan blood had transmitted to the young race any nautical skill, such a.s
we admire to-day among the Polynesians and Western Malays, the Australian con-
tinent would have put an end to it, for it has always been the country of material
anxiety, and as a consequence the country of continual decadence.
The loss of seamanship is in reality only a sign of this. The aloofness from
the outer world which began with it was the first step toward that complete dis-
appearance of Australia from history for the millenniums that have elapsed since
its first colonisation. The cause of this is not to be found in the isolation of the
continent, for other completely remote races have developed a history and a civili-
zation. It was not to the absolute seclusion from the rest of the world and the
unbroken quiet in which Australia reposed, as the corner pillar of the Old World
between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, that the entire absence of any historical
development of its own was due, but to the total impossibility of creating a true
national life on its niggard soil. The attempts to do so, which the Europeans
found on their arrival, can at best be termed a caricature of political organisation.
B. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL POSITION OF THE TASMANIANS
THE Tasmanian also has not progressed far in the field of political developmeot.
Since the nature of his country is richer in resources than Australia, economic con-
siderations must be excluded from the list of possible causes. The same remark
applies to the small proficiency in navigation, which we noticed also in Australia.
The explanation can only be found in that close affinity of the Tasmauian to the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 243
Melanesian ethnical group, upon which all observers have insisted. This is
primarily shown in the physical characteristics; but, secondarily, it appears in
the inability of the Papuan to rise higher than the stage of village communities.
New Guinea offers the closest parallel.
C. THE WHITES
THE whites do not belong to the continent, but have made it commercially sub-
ject to them, and have thus, in contrast to the aborigines, who have never succeeded
in breaking the strong fetters of nature, become the true makers of its history.
This history even now looks back barely on a century, a period of time that hardly
•counts in the life of a people. Yet it has already been full of vicissitudes, even if,
in this respect, it has been greatly surpassed by the outwardly similar history of
the United States of America. Australia has so far followed the comfortable
road of a daughter State ; the storms begin to gather when the first thought of
independence is suggested.
In contrast to America, which for centuries has been a crucible for almost all
the races and peoples of the globe, the immigrant population of Australia, Tas-
mania, and New Zealand is unusually homogeneous. It is composed almost exclu-
sively of Britons, by the side of whom the members of other nationalities practically
disappear. Even the hundred thousand Germans who have settled there hardly
affect the result, especially since their absorption in the rest of the population is
merely a question of time. The Chinese, since they never make their home in the
•country, may be disregarded as factors in the growth of national life.
The ethnical unity of the white population of Australia is of extreme impor-
tance for the British empire. England's dominant position on the Indian Ocean
(see the section at the end of the volume) may appear most favourable ; but in
view of the efforts made by the colonial powers of Western Europe to strengthen
their recently acquired possessions in those parts and to increase their influence
generally, but above all in view of the danger that Russia may deliver a flank
attack from the north on India, this position may grow less tenable from day to
day. The same turn of fortune is in prospect for England (and all other European
colonial powers) on the Pacific. There it is the cutting of the Central American
Isthmus, which is to the advantage, both strategically and economically, of the
United States, above all other powers, and threatens to give them in the South Seas
a great superiority over all rivals. The interests of England are, from the posi-
tion of affairs, most at stake. It is for this reason a great stroke of good fortune for
lier that the corner pillar, which both supports the dominions on the Indian Ocean,
and is, on the other side, the chief agent of British interests in the Pacific Ocean, is
not only an English possession, but, as it were, a part of England itself. In thought
and action, customs and habits, mother and daughter exactly resemble each other.
Even in the matter of dress the daughter country has not found it necessary to
consider the change of climate ; the tall hat is the only admissible head gear even
in the streets of Sydney and Melbourne.
This feeling of complete sympathy must be most soothing to the mother coun-
try. It knows that the two countries are identical in customs and manners, and it
tacitly assumes that the same community of feeling must reign in every other
•department of life. This feeling is so strong that even the latest and boldest of
244 ' HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
*:'
all the political steps of the Australian colonies, their union into the Common-
wealth of Australia, which was proclaimed on September 17, 1900, is regarded in
England as taken entirely in the interests of Great Britain. This view of the situ-
ation is creditable, in a way, to England, since it proves her complete confidence in
the colonies ; but there is room to doubt whether it is justified by the facts. How
would it be if this federation, notwithstanding all professions of loyalty, were the
first step toward political independence ? Joseph Chamberlain, who with all the
defects of his character is undoubtedly the most far-seeing English statesman
of the present day, has declared emphatically in a public speech that such a
step or even the thought of it lay entirely outside the range of possibility. But
when we see how in the national life of to-day economic interests outweigh all
other impulses and have become completely the gauge of international relations,
we can hardly share the view of the English minister, especially when we recall
the defection of the United States, whose ethnographical relations toward the
mother country were quite as favourable as those of Australia.
England might see a faint ray of hope, so far as she could ever imagine herself
in need of it, in a phenomenon, which perhaps is even more interesting in the his-
tory of development than it is pregnant with results from the point of view of
colonial politics, namely, in the political and intellectual transformation which has
taken place among the white immigrants in Australia and New Zealand. The
astonishing change which the white man of North America has undergone in his
whole physical aspect is well known. It has now gone so far as to create a peculiar
type, the Yankee, that tall, gaunt figure, which no longer suggests the original Euro-
pean immigrant, but seems completely Americanised. Even in the colour of his skin
and the formation of his hair the Yankee has begun to differentiate himself from
his European kinsmen and to approach the type of the aboriginal Indians. Similar
changes, for which on so large a scale we cannot suggest any explanation, although
generally the climate may be regarded as the main cause of the transformation, have
been suffered by the Briton in Australia and New Zealand. A. K. Newman, in
1876, only some thirty years after the colonisation of New Zealand by Europeans,
pointed out (as Heinrich Schurtz describes in his " Urgeschichte der Cultur ") the
growth of a peculiar New Zealand type, which shows itself in a narrowing of the
lower jaw, a contraction of space for the teeth, and irregularities of the teeth them-
selves. There are also other modifications of type. " The fresh complexions of the
Englishmen give way, among the young New Zealanders, to duller and more faded
tints. It is a remarkable fact that very few children are born in New Zealand
with dark eyes and hair. The parents may be as dark as they can be, with jet-
black hair and black eyes, their progeny will always show less intense colour. On
the Australian continent, by contrast, the blondes seem always in a minority with
the brunettes. The effects also of a hotter climate on the people are noticeable
in New Zealand, but more especially on the continent of Australia. In Australia,
under the influence of a scorching sun, the children grow up quickly ; but they
also fade as quickly as hothouse flowers, and their intellectual and physical
powers are nearly exhausted at an age when the Englishman still possesses his
youthful energy. The young people of New Zealand and of the Australian colonies
are physically and intellectually weaker than the inhabitants of the old country at
the same age. They are less capable of working ; toil and privations quickly tell
on them. This colonial younger generation possesses little physical power of
£52"""] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 245
endurance ; every attack of sickness rapidly prostrates the people, and they recover
slowly. Even the women soon lose their bloom. The Australian, like the Yankee
type, tends toward a tall, slouching figure, with slender muscular development, a
peculiarity which has produced the nickname of ' corn-stalk.' " For the present this
remarkable phenomenon possesses merely an anthropological interest ; sufficient
time has not elapsed for political results to follow from it. Should, however, the
question of political independence come before the colonies, the possibility is not
excluded that the steadily increasing total of the negative qualities just enumerated
may decide it unfavourably for the Australian.
4. THE ASCEKTAINABLE FACTS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE
AUSTEALIANS AND TASMANIANS
A. INDUCTIONS FROM THE PRE-EUROPEAN PERIOD
ONE of the greatest achievements of the nineteenth century in the field of
ethnology, the art of reconstructing from prehistoric finds the national history
of long-past ages, lying beyond all tradition and written record, fails in Australia.
This does not imply that discoveries of the kind might not be made ; quite the
reverse. The continent has its mirnjongs, or ash-heaps, measuring sometimes ten
feet in height, and often several hundred yards in circumference, and containing
pieces of bone and stone axes ; these are very common in South Australia and
Victoria, particularly on Lake Conne warren, and form an exact counterpart of the
" kitchen middens " of Denmark and the sambaquis of South America (cf. Vol. I,
p. 182). Great heaps of mussel-shells are also found in the vicinity of the sea-
.shore ; there is even one really artistic erection dating from prehistoric times. This
ancient monument, as we may fairly call it, is the stone labyrinth of Breewarina
•on the upper Darling, some sixty miles above Bourke. It consists of a stone weir
.a hundred yards or so long, which, built on a rocky foundation, stretches diagonally
through the river. From this transverse dam a labyrinth of stone walls reaching
some ninety yards up stream has been constructed, which is intended to facilitate
the catching of the fish which swim up or down stream. The walls form for this
purpose circular basins of from two to four feet in diameter ; some are connected
together by intricate passages, while others only possess one entrance. These
•walls, according to Emil Jung, are so firmly built of ponderous masses of rock, that
the mighty floods, which sometimes poured down with a depth of twenty feet, were
only able at best to dislodge the topmost layers of the stones.
The conclusions which we can draw from the existence of the mirnjongs and
the shell mounds, but especially from the Breewarina Labyrinth, throw some little
light on the ancient Australians. Each of the three constructions presupposes
in the first place that the population, at least in the southeast, was considerably
denser in early times than at the time of the landing of the Europeans ; otherwise
the piling up of the refuse mounds would imply periods of whose length we could
form no conception. The building of the labyrinth also can only be explained
by the employment of large masses of men, especially since the materials had
to be brought from a considerable distance. But, besides this, it can only have
been erected by an organised population ; Australian hordes of the present day
would be incapable of such combined efforts.
246 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
Another circumstance confirms our assumption of the retrogression of the
Australians both in numbers and in culture. The boats, whether they consist
of nothing better than a piece of bark tied together at both ends and kept apart
in the middle by pieces of inserted wood, or appear in the shape of simple rafts,,
carry in the middle on a little pile of clay a fire, the modern object of which
is merely the immediate cooking of the fish that are caught, but its invariable
presence there suggests the thought that it is a survival from former regular sea
voyages, when the custom was justified.
This proof by probability that the Australians have retrograded in numbers
and in civilization is all that can be derived from the evidence of the country and
the national life. This is no great achievement; but it shows how completely
unfavourable natural conditions have overwhelmed the energy and capabilities
of the natives. It is, for the time being, impossible to judge the length of the
periods with which we have to reckon or to determine whether a deterioration
of the climate has contributed to this decline ; such a contingency is not impossible
(cf. Vol. Ill, p. 398, as to the Sahara).
After all we can only follow the history of the Australians and Tasmanians
from the moment of their intercourse with the white men. There is no question
here of a true development, such as can be traced in all nations except a few
border nations in the north and south of the globe. The expression "history"'
really connotes too much in this case ; for all that European civilization and the
white men brought to them tended to one and the same result ultimately ; the
slow but sure extinction of the whole race. The methods of extermination may
differ, but the end is always the same.
In physical geography the expression " geographical homologies " is constantly
employed. It is borrowed from comparative anatomy and signifies the recurrence
of the same configuration, whether in the horizontal outlines or in the elevation of
the surface, which we find in the countries of our globe. The best known of
these homologies is the striking similarity in the contours of South America,.
Africa, and Australia, which, in the words of Oskar Peschel, display as great
a uniformity of shape as if they had been constructed after a model. It is not
our intention to examine this similarity closely ; but we must consider for a few
moments that exact correspondence of the southern extremities of those continents,
which goes far beyond a mere linear resemblance.
The tapering away into a wedge-like point, facing the Antarctic, which is a
feature peculiar to the three continents (if the island of Tasmania is reckoned
as part of Australia), is, so far as its shape goes, an excrescence breaking through
the general scheme on which their outlines are modelled ; the meaning and cause
of this precise contour have remained a mystery to men like Humboldt and
Peschel. But there is no doubt as to the influence which these vast and lonely
promontories, tapering away into the ocean, have exercised on physical geography
and the distribution of culture.
From the first point of view, their position and shape determine the course
of the entire circulation of the seas of the southern hemisphere. The character
of the climatic conditions is influenced by them, and the greater or less degree to
which the land masses of the southern hemisphere can be inhabited is decided
in the last resort by them. On civilization the effect of this wedge-like shape
is exclusively negative. It places the inhabitant of those promontories on the
Australia and"]
Oceania
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
247
remote southern edge of the habitable world, cuts him off to the north from
the centres of civilization, and confines him to regions which are continually
narrowing. Still more momentous are the consequences on the art of navigation.
The vast ocean, limitless and islandless, surrounds each of the three extremities.
How, then, should primitive people venture on the high seas, when even a highly
developed navigation cannot flourish without some opposite coast which can be
reached ?
But the homology goes still further, for Africa and Australia in a large degree,
and in a more restricted degree for South America. It shows itself this time
in the destiny of the natives during intercourse with the whites. How these
latter have treated the Bushman and the Hottentot in South Africa can be seen
in another part of this history (Vol. Ill, p. 424) ; the result of a war of exter-
mination for more than two centuries was similar; both peoples at the present
time can hardly be called even the fragments of a nation. The aborigine of
southern South America has hitherto fared better. Neither Patagonians nor
Araucos have, it is true, emerged unscathed from intercourse with the white
intruders ; but they have been able to retain the characteristics of their race, and
have remained free and independent. No careful observer will imagine that this
is a consequence of Creole courage ; what has preserved the Indian hitherto from
destruction is merely the political immaturity of his opponents and the insufficiency
of their numbers to people the vast territory of South America.
B. THE HISTOKY OF THE TASMANIANS
THE Australians and Tasmanians did not fare so well. The latter have been
for a quarter of a century blotted out from the list of living peoples ; the same
fate impends upon the former, and is, from all appearance, inevitable. The Tas-
manian tragedy is not only the most gloomy from its denouement, but has a sad
pre-eminence for the large number of sensational details. It opens on the 4th of
May, 1804, when the natives, on approaching the new settlement of Hobart in a
friendly spirit, were, through an unfortunate misunderstanding of their intentions,
greeted by the English garrison with a volley of bullets ; or we can, if we prefer,
take the date June 13, 1803, when the first batch of English convicts landed on
the spot where the present capital of the country, Hobart, stands. This year saw
the birth of the Tasmanian woman, Trukanini, or Lalla Eookh, who was destined
to survive all her tribesfolk. She died in London in 1876. The death struggle of
the whole people had thus precisely lasted a lifetime.
The destruction of the Tasmanians was not accomplished without vigorous
resistance on their part. By natural disposition peaceable, harmless, and contented,
they had endured for many years the ill-treatment of the transported convicts and
the colonists without transgressing the laws of self-defence. It was only after
1826 that, driven to frantic desperation, they amply revenged the treatment they
had suffered, and murdered all their tormentors who fell into their hands. The
twenty-two years that had intervened do not add fresh laurels to the history of
English colonisation, nor redound to the honour of mankind generally. In the
very first years of the settlement, the hostilities, which, according to the official
admission, were always commenced by the whites, assumed such proportions, and
the oppression of the natives was so harsh, that in 1810 a special law (Collins)
248 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
had to be passed which proposed to punish the murder of an aborigine as an actual
crime. Like so many measures which have been passed in the course of European
colonial history for the protection of the native populations, this also remained a
dead letter, since it was impossible to obtain legal evidence in the case of blacks,
who were despised and possessed no rights. The aborigines were shot down where
they were met, just as before ; their women were captured or enticed away, to live
in concubinage with their captors.
It was not only by these persecutions that the growth of the English colony
exercised an adverse influence on the fortunes of the natives. Until the landing
of the whites, the sea, with its inexhaustible store of fish, molluscs, and other
living creatures, had supplied all their food; but in proportion as the colony
increased, with the growth and prosperity of the towns, the advance of the colon-
ists, and the multiplication and extension of their pasture grounds, the region
where the natives could live was curtailed ; above all, they were driven away from
the coast. But this was a vital question for the Tasmanians, since the rough and
wild interior was absolutely wanting in all the means of life. We now understand
how these originally timid natives became veritable heroes from desperation, and
strove to harm their persecutors when and how they could.
The " victory " of the English was not lightly won. The natives, driven by
force into the interior, soon acquired so accurate a knowledge of this country,
covered with dense forest and intersected by ravines, that it was difficult to get at
them. As Charles Darwin tells us, they often escaped their pursuers by throwing
themselves flat upon the black ground, or by standing rigidly still, when, even at a
short distance, they were indistinguishable from a dead tree trunk. Faced by
these tactics, the English finally resorted to other measures. By a proclamation
they forbade the natives to cross a certain boundary. They then (in 1828) offered
them also a reservation where the persecuted and pursued might collect and live
in peace. Both measures proved futile. The first would never have been really
understood by the people, even if they grasped the sense of the words. For the
second, the time was already past : the natives were no longer susceptible to a fair
treatment, nor were the Europeans disposed to maintain a pacific attitude. The
old order of things revived. Head-money, and liberal sums of it, since the quarry
was so splendid, was offered for the shooting or capture of the blacks, and abor-
igines were brought over from Australia in order to track out the enemy more
surely. Finally, when all failed, Colonel Arthur, the governor, who suggested all
these measures, tried to attain his object by a colossal " drive." A cordon was to
be drawn across the whole island from coast to coast, and the " game " thus forced
on to a narrow peninsula. Two natives, or, according to other accounts, only one,
composed the " bag " of this attempt, which cost the mother country the sum of
thirty thousand pounds sterling.
With the failure of these last attempts of Arthur, the tragedy of the Tas-
manians enters on another phase. This was free from bloodshed, but was not
less disastrous than the former, and is inseparably connected with the name of
George Augustus Robinson. This extraordinary man, by trade a simple carpenter
at Hobart, and unable to write English correctly, offered, when all warlike meas-
ures were ineffective against the natives, to induce them by peaceful overtures
to emigrate. We know how thoroughly he accomplished his self-imposed task.
Unarmed and single-handed, he attained by pacific negotiations a result which a
ocea£aand} HISTORY OF THE WORLD 249
whole populous colony had failed to achieve in decades of bloody warfare, and
thus clearly demonstrated how easily matters might have been arranged with the
Tasmanians if only the good-will had been forthcoming. Through the media-
tion of Kobinson, one tribe was assigned to Swan Island, three others to Gun
Carriage Island. Later (1843) all the natives were united on Flinders Island.
These " tribes " were by this time not very numerous : powder and shot, syphilis,
and smallpox, had caused too great ravages in the past forty years. In 1804 the
native population was put at eight thousand souls roughly; in 1815 some five
thousand were still estimated to exist. Their number in 1830 reached some seven
hundred, and in 1835 dwindled to two hundred and fifty, or one hundred and
•eleven heads. In 1845, when the survivors were taken across to Oyster Cove in
the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, only forty-five, and in 1861 only eighteen, were
left. The last male Tasmanian, King Billy, or William Lanne, died in 1869 at
Hobart, aged thirty-four, and in 1876 the race of the Tasmanians became entirely
•extinct on the death of Trukanini, — the fate that awaits all primitive races from
intercourse with civilization.
It is idle at the present day to load the parties concerned with reproaches. No
nation, vigorously engaged in colonisation, has yet been destined to keep the shield
of humanity spotless and pure. It must also be admitted that in later years earnest
•attempts were made to atone for the wrongs done to the natives in the earlier
period. That the wrong methods were chosen is another consideration, which does
not do away with the crime, but may be pleaded as an extenuating circumstance.
C. THE HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIANS
THE knell of the Australians has not yet sounded. The restless race still
roams the vast steppes, still hunts here and there the nimble kangaroo, and throws
with strength and skill the spear and the boomerang. But how cooped in its once
wide domain ! The whole of the east, fairly rich in resources even for the rude
savage, the northeast and southeast, have long been taken by the white man.
Now, in most recent times, the latter is making vast strides from the west into
the interior, and the north is being more and more encroached upon. The aborigine
Is faced by the alternatives of retiring into the desert-like interior, or of being
forced to capitulate to civilization and become the servant of the European.
Neither alternative is calculated to perpetuate either him or his peculiar nature.
The tragic history of the Australians is distinguished from that of the Tas-
manians in two respects : it was of longer duration, and covered an incomparably
larger space. In character the two struggles have been much alike, and the final
issue would have already been the same for the Australian as for the Tasmanian
had not better natural conditions been offered to the victims in the shape of a
wider district into which to retire, and had not times and customs become less
cruel. And this even in the Australian bush. The whole tide of misfortune that
overwhelmed the race on the landing of the whites in Australia may be ultimately
traced to the unbounded contempt which the Englishman has shown since 1788
for the " black fellow " and the " black gin." This contempt has prevented him
from studying the people and their institutions, and has especially kept him from
•conceding to the native any vested rights in the soil. But any one who knows
that the political organisation of ancient Australia found practically its only
250 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
expression in the claim of each single tribe to one definite territory (within the
tribe itself the land was at times divided between the various families) will also
understand that the rude encroachments of the first Europeans, whether convicts
or free colonists, could not fail to provoke grave disputes. Among the natives
themselves violation of territory ranked as the most flagrant breach of the peace.
Next to this contempt for all rights of the natives, the class of human beings
who were first brought to those shores greatly influenced the form which subse-
quent conditions assumed. There may be a division of opinions about the value
of transportation as a means of punishment or as a measure for colonisation ; but
there can be no doubt that it has been ruinous to native races, whose fine qualities
might have been turned to good account. Tasmania, to give an example in our
own field, has proved this ; so, too, New Caledonia, and it is patent in Australia.
That shiploads of convicts were disembarked without precautions, and were still
more carelessly looked after, is admitted even by the official reports of the time ;
in 1803 complaints were made that the number of guards was insufficient. Under
the circumstances it was very easy for the prisoners to escape into the bush, and
they did not fail to use the opportunity. The consequences for the unfortunate
blacks were soon apparent. The first gift to them consisted of smallpox, brandy,
tobacco, and syphilis ; and they soon learned to be immoral, foul-mouthed, beggars,
and thieves. And while the natives were at first peaceable and friendly, the
coarseness and brutality of the convicts soon led to their becoming more and more
hostile, until they, on their part, began that guerilla warfare which has lingered on
more than a century. There has, however, been no lack of good intentions on the
Australian continent. The energies of the government have been more than once
directed toward the object of gaining over the natives ; the term of office of the
first governor, Phillip, was full of such praiseworthy efforts ; but there could be
no idea of any success unless all the immigrants radically changed their behaviour
toward the natives.
The settlers, again, whose immigration began in 1790, did their honest best to
fill the cup to overflowing. They stole the wives of the blacks, shot down all of
them who came within range, and openly boasted of poisoning them with arsenic,
like rats and mice. A handful of poisoned meal which a settler offered to the un-
suspecting wretch, or a piece of poisoned mutton hung temptingly in the bush,
were methods considered worthy of commendation. The government, it is true,
gave official guarantees of protection to the blacks ; but these guarantees existed
only on paper. Thus a proclamation guaranteed a reward of £100 sterling to any
one who handed over to justice the black murderer of a white, while in the event
of the murder of a black by a white only £25 were offered. But what white
would have assisted to enforce this remarkable measure by giving evidence against
a man of his own colour on account of a deed which no one considered a wrong,
much less a crime ? And the testimony of an aborigine had as little weight here
as in Tasmania.
The following story illustrates the popular feeling and the estimation in which
the native was, and still is, held. As Emil Jung tells us, a society was formed in
Sydney in 1839 for the protection of the aborigines, and had, after much trouble,
carried a law, which provided for the appointment of commissioners who should
be responsible for the care of the natives. This measure, intended to check the
settlers in their high-handed treatment of their black neighbours, was sufficient to
Australia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 251
rouse a certain section of the population to great indignation. In order to show
how little tliey cared about an edict which proposed to lessen their prescriptive
rights over the despised and detested race, seven Englishmen rode out one Sunday
to a native camp, which was inhabited by thirty men, women, and children. They
drove them all into a hut, tied them together with a rope, and killed them, one
after the other, in cold blood. When the murderers were brought to justice the
whole colony rose up against their condemnation, and it needed the exercise of the
full authority of the governor to protect the witnesses from open threats, and to
bring the guilty parties to the gallows. The treatment of the native in the more
remote parts of the country is even yet discreditable to humanity. Any one of
them in South Australia who has no visible means, of subsistence incurs the risk of
being clapped into prison for six months, unless he prefers to hire himself out as a
" contract labourer " to the farmers.
The effects of such treatment of the Australian race on the outposts of civili-
zation can easily be imagined. The blacks have been for more than a hundred
years systematically driven away from the rivers, and thus exposed to the danger
of dying from thirst ; so, too, their once boundless hunting-grounds have been sys-
tematically transformed into enclosed pasturages, and they have thus been robbed
of their most prolific source of food. To crown, all this, the settler treats them
with universal contempt, and thus changes the native pride of the free savage into
the servility of the beggar. A physical and moral degeneration of the race is the
first consequence ; a rapid diminution in numbers is the second. The food supply
of the Australian has never been abundant ; the niggard nature of his country has-
ensured that ; but he had at least the power to exercise his own will freely and
could adapt himself to circumstances unhindered, or restrained only by the un-
written code of tribal custom. He thus presented the picture of an infinitely poor
yet morally and economically independent people. At the present day he roams
about emaciated, starving, and ragged, painfully eking out his existence by beggary
and theft, more like a ghost of the past than a member of the human family of the
present. The scarcely veiled and not unnatural feeling of revenge alone suggests
the Australian of former days.
The number of the Australian natives has never been accurately determined.
The highest estimate is that of L. C. D. de Freycinet, who allows for more than
1,100,000 Australians at the beginning of the European immigration. This figure
is certainly far too high and is universally rejected ; other calculations range from
100,000 to 200,000 for the pre-European period. Beyond doubt the continent was
sparsely peopled. So far as aborigines are concerned, it is incomparably more so
now ; 50,000 is certainly too high an estimate. The diminution of the native pop-
ulation has therefore proceeded at an alarmingly rapid rate. In Victoria in 1836
they were counted to be some 5000 souls; in 1881 they had sunk to 770. The
shrinkage has not been so great in all districts, but it is universal ; the birth rate
among the natives is nowhere equal to the death rate.
The government of the mother country has, since it realised the miserable decay
of the aborigines and its own responsibility in the matter, bestirred itself to devise
remedies ; it has again and again seriously exhorted the colonial governments of
Australia to consider the interests of the blacks, and has founded native schools in
Adelaide and other towns with considerable sums from the imperial exchequer.
But it did not touch the root of the matter. The schools were certainly well and
252 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
diligently attended and showed good results ; but what use could they be to the
scholars, when they, like their whole tribe, only disappeared the sooner, the closer
their intercourse was with the European. Such a state of things could only have
been remedied by the most thorough control over the spread of colonisation, but,
above all, by the abandonment of the cheap and comfortable principle, so ruinous
for its victims, of the appropriation of the land without compensation. The former
would have directly protected the life of the natives by preventing the perpetual
man hunts : but a fair compensation for their claims would in the first place have
restrained them from the racial war so fatal to them, and secondly, would have
strengthened their economic position. England, which did not feel strong enough
for both steps, bears therefore the responsibility for the unceasing deterioration of
the Australian aborigines. If extenuating circumstances count, they can only be
found in the mysterious fact that contact with the white man is in itself ruinous
to every primitive people, and it is quite immaterial what treatment he vouchsafes
to them.
5. THE COLONIAL HISTOEY OF AUSTEALIA AND TASMANIA
THE efforts of the Europeans of Australasia in the field of economics and poli-
tics have been crowned with a success which is in striking contrast to the failure
of their efforts to preserve and civilize the natives. On the one side they have
completely or partially effaced from the list of living races one or two peoples,
who although shattered had still some pleasure in existence ; on the other side,
from a corner of the world, which Europe during a whole century and a half, from
its discovery by Abel Tasman in 1642 to the landing of Phillip in Botany Bay
in 1788, had not deemed worthy of any notice, they have conjured forth a State
which at the present day needs only a sufficient period of development, inde-
pendence, and a more considerable population, in order to be reckoned as one of
the important factors in the making of the history of mankind. All these
deficiencies, however, are such as will repair themselves in course of time.
A. THE OPENING OF THE COLONIAL HISTOKY OF AUSTRALIA
(a) The History of its Discovery. — The history of the discovery of Australia
is deeply interesting, both as regards the history of civilization and as regards that
of international trade, because its effects have been parallel in many ways to those
produced by the discovery of America, — both continents required to be twice dis-
covered by the civilized world before it appreciated their value and permanently
occupied them. This similarity is expressed even in the intervals of time between
the old and new discoveries which are to some extent proportional to the size of
the two land masses. In the case of America the period that elapsed between the
discovery by the Northmen and the voyage of Columbus (cf. Vol. I., p. 349) was
five hundred years; in the case of Australia little more than a century and a
half elapsed between the voyage of Quiros in 1606 through the Torres Strait
and the discovery of the east coast by James Cook in 1770. If we consider Abel
Tasman's voyages in 1642 and 1644 as the first proper discovery, the interval
is considerably diminished.
#efntaand] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 253
The abandonment of the first discovery was no accident in the case of the two
continents ; no necessity then existed for bringing the new worlds into the sphere
of civilized activity. At the period of the first discovery of America, as in the
centuries preceding, the centre of gravity of Europe inclined one way, — toward the
east which had long supplied all its needs, both material and spiritual. It there-
fore neither understood nor valued the new discovery and let it sink into complete
oblivion. At the second and final discovery of America the position of affairs
was quite altered ; in fact it may be said that the discovery itself was a conse-
quence of the very alteration. Europe, after the year 1000, had gravitated strongly
to the east, as the Crusades and the prosperity of the city states of the
Mediterranean prove (cf. Vols. VI. and VII.) ; but since the appearance of the
Osmans the centre of gravity had been considerably shifted, and men felt more
and more urgently the necessity of freeing themselves at least from the necessity
of trading through Egypt, Syria, and Pontus, and of securing the communication
with the south and east coast of Asia by a direct route. There was no cause
to abandon this goal, which was at first supposed to have been found in the
discoveries of Columbus and his contemporaries, after a new world was recog-
nised in the newly discovered continent. Such important economic considera-
tions do not concern the first discovery and subsequent neglect of Australia.
The whole story of its discovery comes rather under the head of the search for the
terra australis incognita, the great unknown southern continent, which lasted
two thousand years. The search originated with an assumption that the great
continents of the northern hemisphere must be balanced by similar masses of land
in the south. The hypothetical southern continent always excited an interest
which was purely theoretic ; and herein lies the explanation why in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, that age of practical tendencies, so little attention
was paid to the problem. The explorers of the southern seas hoped to demon-
strate the existence of this country ; but the idea of making full use of it crossed
no one's mind. Australia, after the first glimpses of her shores, was allowed
to relapse into oblivion. Tasman's first voyage had proved that the ocean was
landless for many degrees of southern latitude, that is to say, the presumed
continent did not exist in that region. Although Dutch ships had touched or
sighted points of the west and north coast of Australia several times since 1606,
no one guessed that in his winding course Tasman had circumnavigated a conti-
nent. Scientific curiosity was satisfied with the negative conclusions established
by his voyage.
An additional circumstance kept the practical European long aloof from
Australia : the desolate appearance of the tracts of coast which were first touched.
Although with the exception of the south and east coasts the greater part of the
coastline of Australia is little calculated to rouse pleasant anticipations of the value
of the country, yet it may be termed a marvellous misfortune for the continent that
the majority of the numerous navigators who set foot on the shore before James
Cook were fated to land on spots which were especially bleak, sterile, and inhos-
pitable. This was the case of the Dutchman, Dirk Hartog, who landed on the
shores of Shark Bay in 1616 ; and such were the experiences of the numer-
ous other Dutchmen who in the first half of the seventeenth century set foot
on the west, north, and south coasts, Abel Tasman among their number. The
opinion of the Englishman, William Dampier, was, however, fraught with conse-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapteriir
quences for the continent This navigator, as successful in piracy as exploration,
who in two voyages (1689-1699) at the end of the seventeenth century surveyed
a considerable part of the west coast, penetrated to some distance into the interior
in order to form an opinion as to its worth. His verdict was crushing enough ;
according to him the country was the poorest in the world, far inferior to the
coast of Portuguese South Africa. No corn grew there, no roots, no pod fruits
and vegetables from which food could be got. The miserable aborigines had
neither clothing nor houses, and were the most miserable creatures in the world.
Compared with these blacks the very Hottentots seemed gentlemen. The results
of this report by Dampier, which was unfortunately only too much based on fact,
show themselves in the entire cessation of voyages of discovery to Australia
for more than two-thirds of a century, apart from some attempts at colonisation
in the country, such as had already been made by the Dutch in 1628.
Even the final and lasting discovery of Australia by James Cook in 1770
•did not immediately lead to the exploration of the continent. That far-sighted
•explorer certainly had such a goal before his eyes when he took possession of
the whole east coast, from the thirty-eighth degree of southern latitude as far as
Cape York, in the name of his king, for England ; certainly the glowing accounts
which his companion Banks, the botanist, brought back of the magnificent scenery
and the splendid climate were calculated to attract the attention of governments
to the possibility of colonising this new earthly paradise. But the political situa-
tion was not favourable to such plans. England stood on the eve of her tedious
war with the united colonies of North America; she required to guard her
position on the near Atlantic and could not possibly think of following out any
plans in a remote corner of the southern seas. And yet the birth of the Australian
^colonies dates from the War of Independence in America.
(6) The Founding and Early Days of New South Wales. — England had, since
1600, transported a large number of her criminals to the Atlantic colonies (espe-
cially to Virginia ; cf. Vol. I, p. 435) where their hard labour was welcome. The
convicts were bought by the colonists at sums ranging from £8 upwards, and they
became a source of considerable profit to the government at home. The AVar of
Independence brought this arrangement to an abrupt end in 1779, and England,
whose prisons were soon overcrowded, was compelled to look round for some other
locality. Of the districts proposed in parliament in 1783, namely, Gibraltar, the
Gambia territory, and the region of Botany Bay in New South Wales, only this
latter, from reasons easy to explain, could be seriously considered : Gibraltar did
not offer room enough, .and transportation to Gambia would have simply meant
•" the execution of capital punishment by malaria," as the phrase in the parliamen-
tary report ran. The objections to Australia were only the enormous distance
tmd the difficulties attending the transport of such numbers. In any case the
decision of parliament, in spite of the royal assent, was not put into action soon
enough to anticipate the plan of a certain Mr. Matra, subsequently English consul
in Tangiers. He proposed to settle in New South Wales the numerous families
who had been expelled from North America on account of their support of the
mother country, and at the same time to improve appreciably the position of Eng-
land in the trade of Europe by the increase in production which might be looked
for. Matra, also, failed to carry his plan then. The secretary of state, Lord
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 255
Sydney, certainly favoured the scheme in 1784, but he finally recurred to the idea
of transportation.
A frigate and a tender of the royal navy, six transports and three store ships
with some 1,100 men, of whom about 350 were free, sailed from England on May
13, 1787; they landed on the shores of Botany Bay between the 18th and 20th of
January, 1788, but finding that this site was destitute of the natural resources
which they had been led to expect, the emigrants removed within a few days to
the site of the modern town of Sydney. The expedition was under the command
of Captain Arthur Phillip, the son of a German governess who had married an
English seaman. Phillip conducted the difficult duty of transporting the convicts
with that circumspection and humanity which distinguished him during the whole
of his five years' term of office as governor, even in his attitude toward the natives.
Circumspection and an invincible energy were the qualities which were required
in the succeeding years from the governor of the newly formed community.
Phillip and his settlers were spared none of the experiences which are inseparably
connected with the founding of agricultural colonies.
In February, 1788, the governor removed a small number of convicts, under the
superintendence of Lieutenant King and some soldiers, to Norfolk Island, which
lies almost half way between New Zealand and New Caledonia. The duty of this
minor colony was to manufacture the flax which Cook had found there in large
quantities, in order to supply the main colony cheaply and conveniently with
material for clothing. King set to work with zeal, planted corn and vegetables,
and devoted himself to the manufacture of flax. But in spite of all efforts it was
possible neither here nor on the mainland to feed the colony from its own prod-
ucts ; the need for some help in the way of provisions was most urgently felt by
both countries during the early years. The same need had been felt by some of
the early colonists on different parts of the east coast of America, in Virginia and
Carolina ; and this was the cause of the failure of the great French scheme of
colonisation in Cayenne in 1763. Virgin soil is not at once in a condition to feed
large masses of inhabitants, especially when it is treated with as little technical
knowledge as was shown by the settlers of Phillip and King, no one of whom
understood anything of agriculture ; beside that, the soil of Sydney is not fertile.
Again, the criminals, who preponderated in numbers, felt little desire to work.
According to Phillip, twenty free men did more than a thousand convicts. The
leading thought of the whole of Phillip's term of office was to increase the
number of free settlers and to bring over skilled agriculturists. But when Phillip
voluntarily resigned his post in December, 1792, through shattered health, the
number of free immigrants was still insignificant. The bulk of private holdings
were in the hands of " emancipists," or time-expired convicts, who were hardly
more industrious than the convicts themselves.
Under the prevailing circumstances the internal conditions of the colony were
terribly disorganised during the first years. The want of provisions, which was
felt soon after landing, became so acute in 1790 that for months only half rations
or less could be distributed; the cattle that had been brought with the settlers
escaped or died, and the first fields which were sown produced nothing. In addition
to this, scurvy broke out from want of fresh meat. The soldiers were disobedient
and mutinous, and drunkenness became a besetting vice. Robbery, murder, and
arson were daily occurrences. In February, 1790, the distress became so acute that
256 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \Chapteriii
the governor found himself compelled to send two hundred prisoners to the Nor-
folk Islands, although there was anything but a superabundance of food there.
Meanwhile, fresh transports kept arriving from England with prisoners, masses of
poor wretches crowded together, more than half of whom frequently died on the
long voyage. The survivors were then often so weak, that, half dead, they had to
be unloaded at Port Jackson in slings like bales of merchandise. On the other
hand, provisions, seed corn, and cattle did not arrive.
Governor Phillip, in the midst of all this misery, which often forced him to live
on half rations like the convicts, never lost heart for an instant. On the contrary,
amid the mass of duties which devolved on him in the way of constructing
houses, laying out gardens and fields, and continually battling with famine and
mutiny, he found the time to interest himself in the exploration of the interior ;
he was also desirous of forming amicable relations with the natives. One thing
alone was calculated to fill this patient, dogged man with distaste for his post, and
that was the opposition, passive indeed, but all the more obstinate, which his own
troops showed to all his measures. As a matter of fact, up to the end of 1790, the
marines, and then the New South Wales Corps, a regiment specially organised
for Australia, thwarted every one of his regulations. The soldiers disregarded the
acts of parliament, in virtue of which Phillip exercised his office, and submitted
to military laws only.
A successor to Governor Phillip was finally appointed at the end of 1795 in
the person of Hunter, also a sailor, who had accompanied the expedition of 1787.
The interval of nearly three years was filled by the government of two officers of
the New South Wales Corps, Major Grose and Captain Paterson. The adminis-
tration of both is conspicuous for the enormous growth of the abuses against which
Phillip had vainly contended. Above all the general vice of drunkenness had
assumed most dangerous dimensions, being chiefly encouraged by the increased
trade in spirits, which the soldiers of the militia as well as their officers made their
chief business, from want of military duties. The name " Kum Corps " that was
soon given to these troops has perpetuated this strange conception of military ser-
vice. For the colony itself it clearly involved great losses. The convicts, instead
of being educated to be peaceable and industrious families of farmers, were being
ruined by the vilest alcohol. As a result, the coarsest immorality, blood-curdling
outrages, and inhuman cruelty were the order of the day.
Captain Hunter, the second governor, was unable to check these evils during the
term of his office, which he held from September, 1795, to 1800. He certainly put
an end to the tyranny of the military, and re-established the civil courts which
had long been in abeyance. He also as far as possible suppressed the distilling
of spirits hi the colony, and checked the general immorality. But the evils were
by this time too deeply rooted to be eradicated so quickly by a somewhat impru-
dent man like Hunter. Drunkenness therefore continued rife, just as the ordinary
quarrels of the whites among themselves and with the natives. Even the enormous
tracts of country, which Hunter's predecessors had distributed to civil servants and
military officers, remained in their possession, as well as the excessive number
of convicts, whom they ruled despotically like slaves. It would, however, be
unjust if we judged Hunter's administration by this one side of it ; on the con-
trary, it distinctly promoted the development of the colony in more than one
department. The cultivation of large tracts, which was coinpulsorily enforced by
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 257
the owners, did much to relieve the scarcity of food — the chief misfortune of the
colony up to the nineteenth century ; but on the other hand, it placed the monopoly
of all economic advantages in the hands of a few. These were indeed the two
objects that Major Grose had contemplated when he made similar regulations
in his time.
The two new achievements, by which Hunter's term of office was honourably
distinguished are more partial, but not less important in results. Firstly, under
him the knowledge of the geography of the continent was widened. This was due
to the voyage of Mr. Bass, a naval surgeon, which proved clearly that Van Dieman's
Land was an island, to the first exploration of the Blue Mountains, and to the
discovery of coal seams near Point Solander. It was also found that the cattle,
which had run away in the early days of the colonisation, had begun to multiply
into large herds of half-wild animals; and in this way it was proved that the
supposed impossibility of acclimatising cattle did not in fact exist.
The introduction of systematic sheep farming with a view to the wool, which
is now one of the most important branches of industry on the continent, is
inseparably connected with the name of John MacArthur. During the whole
of the unedifying struggle between the governor and the military, this officer had
been the most vigorous representative of the movement in favour of making and
selling spirits. He was altogether a shrewd and practical man, to whom among
other things the Australian wine trade owes its origin. In 1794 MacArthur pro-
cured sixty Bengal sheep from Calcutta, to which he shortly added some Irish
sheep. By crossing he created a breed whose fleeces were a mixture of hair and
wool. In 1797, in order to produce a finer wool, he obtained, through the agency
of some friendly naval officers, a few sheep from Capetown. These were, as it
happened, fine merinos, a God-send to the continent, for these few animals, and
some ordinary Cape sheep, which were subsequently added, were the progenitors
of immense flocks, and the foundation of the present wealth of Australia.
The results of MacArthur's breeding were prodigious. When in 1801, in con-
sequence of a duel with a fellow officer, he was ordered to England, he took back
specimens of the wool he had grown himself and put them before experts in
London. Their verdict was most favourable. MacArthur's proposal that land and
•convicts should be assigned him in Australia with the definite object of providing
the English woollen industry with Australian material on a wholesale scale, was
favourably answered in October, 1804 Lord Camdeu, the new secretary of state,
instructed the governor of New South Wales to concede to MacArthur five thou-
sand acres in perpetuity for grazing purposes, to give him convicts as shepherds, and
to afford him generally every possible assistance. The governor thereupon issued
a proclamation, in which the concession of tracts for sheep farming or cattle
breeding was publicly announced. MacArthur, however, received the land he
selected in the best part of the colony, on Mount Taurus in the cow pasture
district, where the half-wild herds of cattle had been found in 1795. There with
his original flock, augmented by purchases in England and Australia, he established
his breeding farm, which he called Camden Estate, in honour of the secretary of
state. This became the centre of the new and rapidly flourishing wool-growing
industry.
Since 1800 the governor had been Philip Gidley King, a man who seemed
more qualified than any one else to rescue from the quicksands the misdirected
VOL. 11 — 17
258 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ni
fortunes of the Australian colonisation. King is the same man whom we have
already (p. 255) met with as vice-governor of Norfolk Island, where he had dis-
played excellent qualities in his ten years' struggle against the deficiencies of
nature and the insubordination of his charges. The inheritance to which he
succeeded was not hopeful. The New South Wales Corps was more powerful than
ever in the country, and had just given a proof of its influence in London by
effecting the recall of his predecessor. As might be expected, the brandy trade
was in full swing ; not less than twenty thousand gallons were stored in Sydney
alone. Even of other wares the civil and military officers had a practical monopoly
which was exceedingly remunerative to them,, even if it did not bring in. the twelve
hundred per cent which the spirits paid. King's first step was to check this
abuse. Impowered by the government in London to make the landing of spirits in
Port Jackson dependent on his consent, he prohibited in the autumn of 1800 their
importation and sale without a special permission. All that came by ship in
defiance of this order was either sent back again (in one year, according to Zim-
merman, no less than thirty-two thousand gallons of spirits and twenty-two
thousand gallons of wine) or was bought by King and sold again at a cheap price.
The cheapness only ensured that the usurious trading profits ceased.
It is easy to conceive the reception which the measures of King found among
the members of the New South Wales Corps, especially when we consider what
a strong backing they had in London. Owing to the perpetual European wars the
import of Spanish wool to London had come to a standstill, so that the proposals
of MacArthur to provide the industry with raw material from Australia were
thankfully adopted. MacArthur himself obtained a splendid position at home
through it, as did the entire New Soutli Wales Corps, whose most influential
member he was. Notwithstanding the exasperation of the corps, things did not go
so far as open hostility to the governor. The corps certainly made the governor's
life as unpleasant as possible through the infringement of his regulations in a
thousand ways, while King retaliated by limiting the authority of the regiment
to purely military affairs. But this did not prevent the governor from honourably
and honestly helping MacArthur in his efforts in wool-growing. Nevertheless the
perpetual friction was quite enough to induce King to resign his responsible post
in July, 1805. He retired without expecting or receiving thanks from the home
government, which had always listened to his opponents more attentively than
to him. He might, however, take the consciousness with him that he had done
good service to the colony.
The survey of the western part of the south and east coasts between Cape
Stephens (33° S.) and Cape Palmerston (22° S.) which was carried out during
King's term of office, as well as the exploration of the Gulf of Carpentaria by
Matthew Flinders, were valuable additions to geography, and important for later
colonisation. The formal annexation of the continent by means of extensive
schemes of settlement was his work. This step was necessitated by the unceasing
efforts of the French to gain a firm footing in Australia. King, indeed, impressed
upon the French explorers the prescriptive rights of England,, but at the same time
he thought it expedient to make these rights patent to all by an immediate coloni-
sation of different places. In 1803 Van Diemen's Land was occupied, while, simul-
taneously with the removal of the convicts, who constituted a common danger, two
settlements were founded at Eestdown (Eisdon) on the left bank, and Hobart
*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 259
Town on the right bank of the Derwent. At the same time the first (but unsuc-
cessful) attempt at colonisation from London was made at Port Phillip, the
great bay on which Melbourne now lies ; and, lastly, the foundations were laid of
Launceston, on the north coast of Van Diemen's Land, and of Newcastle, now
the second harbour of New South Wales.
King might also be satisfied with the results of national industries at the end
of his career. On the departure of Phillip, in 1792, about 1,700 acres were under
permanent cultivation, and the number of domestic animals could hardly be reck-
oned in dozens. In 1796, a year after Hunter's arrival, the number of such animals
had reached 5,000, and there were 5,400 acres under the plough. In August, 1798,
according to Jenks,1 the figures were 6,000 acres and 10,000 head of cattle ; for
August, 1799, 8,000 acres and 11,000 head. The white population had amounted
to 4,000 souls when Hunter entered on office. On his retirement in 1800, their
number was, according to Mossman. 6,000. Under King's five years of govern-
ment, this inheritance had developed into the following dimensions : In 1806,
according to Zimmerman, 165,882 acres had been given away in estates or reserved
for the crown ; of these 20,000 acres were cleared ; 6,000 acres were planted with
wheat, 4,000 with maize, 1,000 with barley, 185 with potatoes, 433 served as garden
ground. Of the districts allotted, 15,620 acres were held by civil officials, 20,697
by officers ; 18,666 acres were the property of 405 " emancipists." There were
112 free settlers; in addition there were 80 discharged sailors and soldiers,
and 13 persons born in the colony. The number of stock was as follows : 566
horses, 4,790 cattle, 23,110 sheep, 2,283 goats, 7,019 pigs ; altogether, 37,768 head.
The white population amounted to 9,462 persons in 1806. Of these there were
5,172 men, 1,701 women, and 2,589 children.
The successor of King, nominated in 1805, was William Bligh, long well known
in geographical circles by the wonderful voyage, in the course of which he traversed
in an open boat large portions of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Being commis-
sioned, as captain of the ship "Bounty," to transplant the breadfruit tree from
Tahiti to the West Indies, he had caused such discontent among the crew by his
terrible severity that in the middle of the voyage they placed him with eighteen
companions in a boat, on which he eventually reached Batavia, while the rest of
the crew either returned to Tahiti or founded on Pitcairn Island the small com-
munity which has been so often described since. Bligh's marvellous rescue had
not deprived his character of any of its original roughness. As commander of a
man-of-war, he had provoked a mutiny of the crew by his tyranny, and in New
South Wales, also, where he arrived in the middle of August, 1806, he contrived to
make himself unpopular from the first by his inhuman severity. He was not,
indeed, deficient in an honourable intention of promoting the interests of the
colony, which now showed such promise ; but he lacked a proper comprehension
of his duties. Caprice of every sort, brutal floggings even of free settlers, the razing
of houses the position of which dissatisfied him, the compulsory removal of colonists
in 1807 from Norfolk Island to Van Diemen's Land, — all these were measures
which made the new governor hated. He also by such acts repelled the better
class of people, so that he was surrounded with persons of ill repute in their place.
The episode which brought the ill-feeling to a head, is, as Mr. Jenks expresses
'History of the Australasian Colonies," by E. Jenks (Cambridge, 1896), p. 36.
260 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
it in his " History of the Australasian Colonies," " the most picturesque incident
in the early history of the colony." In accordance with his instructions, which
required him to continue the measures directed by King against the excessive
power of the New South Wales Corps, and above all to proceed against the still
flourishing brandy trade, Bligh had issued an edict in February, 1807, which abso-
lutely prohibited the making and sale of spirits, and forbade the erection of distil-
ling apparatus on private property. Now, MacArthur had ordered some distilling
apparatus from England, in connection with his attempts at vine culture. This was
taken from him and sent back by the orders of the governor. The strained rela-
tions thus produced between the two men were aggravated by Bligh's accusation
that MacArthur had received his five thousand acres of pasture land by supplying
false information. MacArthur's self-justification by reference to the order of the
Privy Council was finally answered by Bligh with a command to appear in court,
because a convict had fled to one of the breeder's ships. When MacArthur did
not obey the summons, he was arrested. Even if Bligh had law upon his side, as
seems to have been the case, yet his sharp procedure was unwise in view of
MacArthur's honourable position. The indignation of the New South Wales Corps
at once vented itself in action. At the instigation of the officers, Major Johnston
liberated the prisoner on January 26, 1808, occupied the government house, and,
agreeably to the wish of MacArthur and other prominent colonists, declared the
governor deposed, and sent him as a prisoner on board a ship lying in the harbour.
All the executive officials who had supported the governor were dismissed or
arrested, the colony was put under martial law, and for almost two years, until the
arrival of the new governor on December 31, 1809, was administered by Johnston
and the members of his corps. MacArthur himself, on a fresh hearing of the case,
was unanimously acquitted.
The attitude of the British government toward the unpleasant incident was
long in making itself known. The tidings of what had happened had reached
England by the end of the year, but there every one was so occupied with the
Napoleonic wars that another year elapsed before any steps against the rebels were
decided upon. Lachlan Macquarie was entrusted with the mission. Johnston was
brought back to England under strict arrest on a charge of mutiny. All the appoint-
ments and assignments of land which had been made after Bligh's arrest were
declared null and void, and all tbe old officials were reinstated. Bligh, who was
still living on his ship in Australia, was recognised as governor, but immediately
recalled and replaced by Macquarie. MacArthur was finally expelled from the
country. He thus had the hardest lot ; keenly interested in its industrial welfare,
he was compelled to remain for years far away from the country and his undertak-
ings. It was not until 1817 that he was allowed to return to his Camden estate.
Johnston fared better, since, thanks to the representations made by Macquarie to
the proper quarters as to Bligh's character and method of governing, he was merely
cashiered. Honours were finally showered upon Bligh himself in England. He
became vice-admiral of the Blue and a fellow of the Royal Society. He died on
December 7, 1817.
Macquarie had not come across from England alone. On the contrary, he
brought a whole line regiment of soldiers with him. This meant nothing less than
a complete change of system. The New South Wales Corps was incorporated into
the English army and withdrawn from Australia forever ; the governor henceforth
A ustralia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 261
had at his disposal disciplined regulars instead of a corps which had heen ruined by
twenty years' sojourn in a penal colony. Macquarie had generally a much easier
position than any of his predecessors. Twenty years of work had produced valu-
able results, notwithstanding all hindrances and cessations, and after King's careful
tenure of office the colony had made great advances in prosperity. In 1810 there
were already 11,590 white colonists; 7,615 acres were under the plough; the num-
ber of cattle reached 12,442, that of sheep 25,888 ; the taxes brought in nearly
£8,000 annually.
Under these favourable conditions, the energy of Macquarie could be prin-
cipally devoted to matters of a positive and executive nature, as was most in
keeping with his disposition. In this respect he was the direct opposite of Bligh,
whose abilities were merely directed toward the repression of abuses, while he
displayed no sort of talent for organisation. Macquarie's first care was to establish
well-regulated conditions in Sydney. He nearly rebuilt the town ; the construc-
tion of new streets, the organisation of police, the erection of public buildings,
especially schools and churches, the laying out of promenades, — all this is his work.
In 1816 the first bank was set up, followed three years later by a savings bank.
He made it his object to construct good roads in the vicinity of the town, as well
as to regulate the courses of the rivers. He especially encouraged the cultivation
of the soil in every direction, and not least so by extreme liberality in grants of
land. This liberality, coupled with the extensive demands for public, that is to
say, home assistance for his reforms, exposed him even then to much censure, both
in England and Australia. Macquarie's efforts to extend the range of colonisation
were not less meritorious than his attempts to raise the moral tone and develop
the industries within the colony itself. His four predecessors had all been sailors,
whose interest in geography was exhausted by voyages of discovery along the
coast. The contour and shape of the Australian continent had, it is true, been
definitely ascertained by them, but for a full quarter of a century, after the landing
in Botany Bay, nothing more was known of the interior than the narrow strip of
land between the coast and the Blue Mountains looming in the west, which had
always been considered impassable. Macquarie urged the colonists to new efforts,
and finally in 1813, Wentworth, Blaxland, and Lawson discovered a way through
the mountains, and found beyond them immense plains of fertile country. Mac-
quarie, in spite of the hundreds of miles of most difficult ground between Sydney
and the new territory, at once set about constructing a road, which was ready to
be opened in 1815. At the same time the town of Bathurst was founded as the
centre of the newly opened up country, which soon became the seat of a brisk
wheat-growing industry and the source of the rapid prosperity of the colony.
New South Wales owed this renewed prosperity largely to the favourable
period at which its discovery and exploitation had taken place. With the close of
the Napoleonic wars England's hands were untied ; even private persons revived
their interest in the oversea possessions. New South Wales now became the goal
of a continuously swelling stream of emigration, which added to the existing set-
tlers a large percentage of free colonists, who were either time-expired soldiers or
discharged convicts. Macquarie himself was by no means friendly to the new-
comers. From the very first he supported the view " Australia for the convict,"
and tried by every means to check the influx of free immigrants. In 1818 he
actually carried a measure by which these latter were deprived of the free passage
262 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
which had been customary since the founding of the colony. The results turned
out quite otherwise from what Macquarie expected. The small man indeed kept
away, but not the man of means. The latter, however, could at once set to work
on a large' scale. He only required to buy sheep, the government supplied him
with land and convicts as shepherds. Thus he became a large landed proprietor ;
but the convict was not the least helped by Macquarie's measures. In spite of all
his popularity, the obvious favour which he showed to the emancipists provoked a
feeling against him among the free settlers, which finally led to the recall of the
well-intentioned governor. The unfavourable attitude of the government against
him was intensified by the outcry of the great landed proprietors. These claimed
wide tracts of land for their grazing farms ; but the governor was pledged to sup-
port the small proprietors who had been convicts previously. This was sufficient
incentive to the now powerful wool industry to advocate the recall of Macquarie,
which took place in 1821.1
Macquarie had still more reason to be satisfied with his results than King.
Even the statistics presented a quite different aspect. In 1821 the white popula-
tion of the colony was estimated roughly at 39,000 souls ; 32,267 acres were under
cultivation ; there were 103,000 head of cattle, 4,564 horses, and more than
250,000 sheep. The annual revenue of the community was £30,000 sterling.
Besides this, internal affairs were splendidly organised, and there was confident
hope that the stream of immigration would not dry up. In short, the departing
governor might fairly feel that it was his own diligent activity for eleven years
that had extricated Australia from her seemingly hopeless position in the swamp
of corruption.
(c) The Development of New South Wales to the Middle of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury. — Macquarie's entrance on office had brought with it a change of system in
the administration, and a similar change signalised his departure. The former had
substituted the civil administration for the military ; the latter put the beginnings
of a constitution in the place of the autocracy. All the governors of the colony
had been hitherto practically despotic ; they had marked out the methods of colo-
nisation according to their own judgment, and embodied in themselves the legis-
lative power ; they were indeed the ultimate court of appeal. They were, it is true,
responsible to the British secretary of state for war and the colonies ; but London
was far away, and the political situation in Europe guaranteed sufficiently that too
much notice would not be taken of Australia. Bligh's motto, " My will is the
law," is characteristic of this view. So long as the majority of the population con-
sisted of convicts or was descended from them, unlimited authority might be con-
centrated in one hand; but as soon as the free population predominated, this
situation was impossible. Even in 1812 the creation of a board of assessors, com-
posed of officials and colonists, had been suggested, but Macquarie had considered
that such an institution, which had proved its value in all other English colonies,
was unsuitable for Australia.
After his departure, the limitation of the power of the governor was an accom-
plished fact. The acts of July 19, 1823, placed at his side an advisory board, to
1 For a more favourable view of Macquarie's policy v. E. Jenks, op. cit., p. 49, who holds that the real
cause of his unpopularity was his determination to give the emancipists equal rights and an equal
social status with the free immigrants. — EDITOR.
A utlralia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 263
which every law had to be submitted for assent ; its five to seven members exer-
cised also a limited financial control. In the one case of a rebellion the governor
had dictatorial power. If the majority of the board voted against a law, it had to
be brought before the crown for decision. On the legal side, the reforms were also
extensive. Hitherto the governor had been the highest court of appeal in all
questions of law; now these were absolutely withdrawn from his decision in
favour of a supreme court of judicature on the English model. The only right
retained by the governor was the remission of sentences on criminals, subject to
the approval of the English government. The first governor who ruled under
these new forms was Sir Thomas Brisbane (1821-1825). His administration kept
strictly within the limits imposed on the governor ; but, in compensation, he
devoted his chief attention to the further exploration and opening up of the coun-
try. The course of the Murray and Murrumbidgee was now traced ; the country
was traversed diagonally as far as the south coast in the vicinity of modern Mel-
bourne, the shores of Queensland and North Australia were explored, and the con-
tinent secured from the renewed designs of the French by settlements on various
outlying points. The first observatory on Australian soil was constructed at
Brisbane.
The effects of Brisbane's attitude toward the colonisation of the newly opened
up interior are economically more important than the fruits of this scientific
activity. Even Macquarie had made settlement in the interior dependent on per-
mission from himself ; Brisbane was more liberal ; he gave the perpetually increas-
ing number of free immigrants the land for grazing purposes free, and conceded to
the Australian Agricultural Company, founded in England in 1824 wich a capital
of one million pounds sterling, not less than a million acres of land near Port
Stephens and in the Liverpool Plains. He encouraged production and trade in
every way; in 1825 there were 45,514 acres under cultivation; more than 4,000
hundred-weight of wool were exported, and some thirty Australian ships were en-
gaged in fishery and commerce. The incomings (over £70,000 sterling) had more
than doubled since 1821.
Two other important and essentially different events fall into the term of
Brisbane's office : the separation of the island of Van Diemen's Land from New
South Wales, and the official declaration of the freedom of the press. The
former was decreed in 1823, and took effect in 1825 ; the latter was announced in
1824, but did not come into force under the successor of Sir Thomas. Its actual
application was postponed until the administration of Bourke (see later).
Brisbane's successor was Sir Kalph Darling, who guided the destinies of the
colony from 1825 to 1831. He did not make himself during the six years of his
administration the favourite of the people which his name would imply. He con-
tinued, it is true, his predecessor's policy of expansion with success, and added
Westernport in the south and Shark Bay in the west to the list of English
stations. It was once more essential to take steps against the expected encroach-
ments of France ; but his action in the colony itself was little calculated to win
Mm friends. The convicts had in his eyes absolutely no claim on humane treat-
ment, while lie treated the free settlers with tyranny and brutality. Two sol-
diers, who had stolen a piece of cloth with the object of being transported to Van
Diemen's Land, were ordered by him to be fettered together, in defiance of the
verdict in the case given by the jury, an institution established in the interval. He
264 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
then had a heavy iron collar, studded on the inside with sharp points, put round
the neck of each, and compelled them to work on the roads in the blazing sun.
One of the poor wretches, who suffered from heart disease, died a few days after ;
the other went mad. This incident provoked furious attacks on the part of the
opposition papers, which had been started since Brisbane's times ; the answer was
the abolition of the liberty of the press.1
At the same time Darling did good service in the development of the colony.
Under this head come his action against the bushrangers, and his resourceful
treatment of the land question, which became year by year more difficult. The
home government then made many attempts in this direction ; one set of " regu-
lations" followed another, up to the middle of the century. Previous to 1824,
estates had been practically given away; the only incumbrance consisted in a
definite annual quit-rent, of which the amount, in any case insignificant, had
undergone various alterations in the course of years ; from two shillings for one
hundred acres in the case of free settlers, and sixpence for thirty acres in case of
discharged convicts, it had gradually risen to five per cent of the estimated annual
value of the land. Governor Brisbane had distinctly made these conditions more
stringent. In the first place, he altogether abolished the free concessions of land,
and fixed the purchase money at five shillings an acre; but, besides this, he
altered the obligation, which had been enforced since the colony was first founded,
of keeping and supporting one convict to every hundred acres of land, by order-
ing that five convicts should take the place of the one. There was still in
addition the quit-rent of two shillings for every one hundred acres. Even these
conditions were insufficient in view of the enormous demand for land, so that
Darling, in 1828, adopted the expedient of establishing a special land office.
This was an undeniable advance towards settling the business of distributing
the land among the applicants. But it no more solved the land question than
did the order issued from London (1824) that the land should be publicly sold by
the governor to the highest bidder. The lowest price was five shillings per acre,
as in Brisbane's proclamation of 1824 ; the highest amount of land to be conceded
to any one purchaser was 9,600 acres.
The object of this limitation was to suppress the speculation in land which
was then rampant. The land was to be reserved for bond, fide settlers; and,
further, only so much was to be cultivated as the needs of the colony required.
The object finally was to look to the future with its growing claims for land. The
results did not correspond to the unwearying solicitude of the government. On
Darling's departure, the area of the land sold or leased amounted to 3,422,000
acres, which obviously could not be kept entirely under cultivation by the 51,155
white colonists. In the short period from 1831 to 1835, this number increased by
no less than 585,000 acres, which had been purchased by auction. The govern-
ment had realised by this sale the sum of £202,600; but it could not fail to see
that only the smaller part of these estates had been bought with the immediate
object of cultivation; the vast majority were merely bought as a speculation.
This applied to the 1,548,700 acres, which had been publicly sold in the years.
1 The author appears not to be aware that these and other charges, made by Darling's opponents, were
investigated by a strong committee of the House of Commons, and that he was absolved from all blame, and
subsequently knighted. — EDITOU.
Australia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 265
1836 to 1840.1 The area expressed by these figures was far too gigantic to be
required by the real demand for land, notwithstanding the brisk immigration of
those years. Nevertheless these figures testify to the enormous impetus which
was then given to the prosperity of the colony, a prosperity which was indeed
interrupted at the beginning of the " forties " by a disastrous industrial crisis.
Its beginnings were foreshadowed in the figures for the years 1839 and 1840.1
(a) The Land Question. — Hardly less than the trouble caused by the specu-
lative purchaser of land was that which arose from the common practice of
" squatting." This is a word which originally came from North America ; but the
practice designated by the word proved more important for the development of
Australia than for the history of the United States. This process of squatting
was extremely simple; cattle breeders on their own responsibility, without any
authorisation, and without payment of purchase money or quit-rent, took posses-
sion of tracts of country for grazing purposes, and thus withdrew them from any
possibility of being legally divided among later candidates. It was in the first
place essential for the squatter's trade of cattle breeding that the " run " which he
appropriated should cover a large extent of country. Moreover, if endless quarrels
and disputes were to be prevented among the owners of the herds, no other ex-
pedient was left for them except that of all pastoral societies under simple con-
ditions, indeed of all primitive farming generally ; that is to say, since the country
offered no natural boundaries, and there was neither inclination nor time nor
means to erect artificial boundaries, a clear demarcation was obtained by leaving
broad tracts unused between the separate estates. There was in fact a reversion
to the most primitive type of boundary ; that which consists of a strip or border of
land. It is a type still to be found in the case of African village communities,
which are often surrounded by zones of wilderness or forest ; it was prevalent in
Europe of the Dark Ages, and some German villages had boundaries of this kind
down to the time of the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
The most complicated difficulties were thus produced for the government. It
had declared at home that the whole continent was its property, and all land be-
longed to the crown. In this way it possessed the incontestable right to dispose
of the land at pleasure ; but on the other hand the equally incontestable obligation
was imposed on it of directing its distribution in such a way that all who shared
in the most important duty of developing the colony — mother country, colonial
government, and settlers alike — might have their rights secured. This was, how-
ever, no easy task, owing to the conflict of interests between large landed proprie-
tors and small farmers, between cattle breeding and agriculture, which had rapidly
been produced under the squatter system.
The most various attempts had been made to solve the problem. The governor,
Sir Kobert Bourke (1831-1838), had already attempted to check the excessive
growth of squatting by a decree which deprived individuals of any legal title to land
which they had appropriated. When that proved a dead letter, and more and more
cattle breeders sought their fortunes in the interior so soon as food for their herds
grew scarce in the coast districts, parliament in 1836 proceeded to hold an inquiry,
the result of which was, on the whole, the retention of the Eegulations of 1831.
1 1836: 389,500; 1837: 368,600; 1838: 315,300; 1839: 285,900; 1340: 189,400 acres.
266 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
A part of the members of the commission voted for high prices for land ; others,
on the contrary, considered the existing minimum price of five shillings per acre
as excessive, since high prices of land were the first inducement to squatting. The
governor of New South Wales was therefore empowered to reduce the minimum
price mentioned still lower if required.
Even this means did not produce the intended result. On the contrary, the
unauthorised appropriation of wide tracts of the interior assumed larger propor-
tions ; and bloody fights with the natives, quarrels among the squatters themselves,
and a spread of intense discontent among the small farmers who were injured by the
practice of land grabbing were the order of the day. For this reason a new procla-
mation of the governor in 1837, in view of the impossibility of exercising even a
moderate control over squatting itself, made the right to squat dependent on the pay-
ment of a definite fee. Whoever paid it had the right to settle in the interior as a
farmer wherever he liked. From the proceeds a new troop of police was formed
and maintained, which was intended to secure peace and order.
As might be expected, even this arrangement did not remove all the deficiencies
which are connected with a young farming industry. Cattle breeding indeed nour-
ished and its profits were enormous. In 1839 there were reckoned to be a quarter
million of cattle and more than a million sheep. The revenue of the colony
was also materially increased by the grazing tax, then fixed at ten pounds annually,
to which were added payments of one penny for every sheep, threepence for
every ox, and sixpence for every horse ; and the enterprising spirit of the sheep
farmers alone had made the colony economically independent. Of the export
trade, which had risen in 1840 to five millions sterling, by far the greater part was
due to the wool industry. But two drawbacks of the system are incontestable:
firstly, the uniformity of the tax brought great grievances with it ; and, secondly,
pastoral enterprise on a large scale, the form of industry which alone was encour-
aged by it, exercised a far-reaching, but not beneficial influence on the entire social
'development of the white population of the continent. The right to occupy land
thus depended on the payment of the fee, but after that the choice of locality as
well as the quantity of land were entirely in the discretion of the colonist. None
of them suffered from excessive modesty ; every one took as much as he could, or
as the vicinity of the districts already occupied allowed. Under these circum-
stances, most of the estates were far larger than was required to graze the stock of
the owner, even if full weight is given to the often pleaded excuse of the growth of
the herds ; and properties as large as a German principality were not uncommon.
This mattered little, so long as free land was available and to spare. But when
the supply grew limited these enormous estates were felt to be hindrances on
colonisation, and the more oppressively so since now the gross disproportion
between the holdings was obvious to all. A few instances show for what the
proclamation of 1837 is responsible in this respect. Apart from the inconsider-
ately large assignment of land to the Australian Agricultural Company (one million
acres), and the gifts to the officers and the officials of the New South Wales Corps,
the concessions of land in the first decades of the century had been confined within
very modest limits. Even the most wealthy man could not call more than a few
hundred acres his own. How different was the position of the pastoral kings of
the forties and fifties! When Governor Gipps, in 1845, made a searching inquiry
into the property of some colonists, he ascertained that in one district eight persons
oSS?-"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 267
with eight licenses occupied 1,747,000 acres, while in the same part nine others
with nine licenses had only (!) 311,000 acres. The four largest stock breeders of
the colony owned 7,750,000 acres, that is to say, they were masters of a territory
nearly twice the size of Yorkshire. The colossal size of such tracts of property
could not but be harmful to the community. The pastoral industry requires on
the one hand immense tracts ; on the other, and especially under the favourable
climatic conditions of Australia, it has no use for a large supply of labour ; even
the largest sheep farmers retain very few hands in permanent employment. The
immediate result is a twofold loss to the entire population. The wool clip brings
large sums of money into the country, which instead of circulating remain in the
hands of a few, and thus encourages capitalism. Closely connected with this is
the impossibility of raising the density of the population above a certain minimum
rate. Where hardly a dozen hands are employed on hundreds of square miles, and
where, further, the settlement of other independent colonists would diminish the
profits of the cattle owner, it is impossible for the population to become dense.
As a matter of fact, even at the present day, the rural population of the interior is
trifling in comparison with that of the towns on the coast.
Still more serious, however, than all these defects in the Eegulations of 1837,
was the immunity of the greater part of the land to which claim was laid from
the payment of the grazing tax, since it inevitably jarred upon the popular idea of
justice. A man who was fortunate, or sufficiently unscrupulous, could acquire a
kingdom for his ten pounds, while his neighbour could only call a few clods his
own. As a matter of fact, the owner of the above-mentioned gigantic tracts had
not paid a penny more than any other colonist who had obtained land after the
promulgation of the regulations. Strangely enough, the effort to abandon this
untenable position was not started by the population itself, which was short-sighted
enough to believe that the salvation of the colony lay in the immediate and unre-
stricted exploitation of the pasture land. On the contrary, it was solely due to the
services of the despotic but far-sighted governor, George Gipps, who had been at
the head of affairs in Sydney since 1838. He ventured to attempt to check the
extension of squatting, and issued a proclamation with retrospective force, by
which every squatter was bound, for the purpose of maintaining his existing title
to his property, to buy at least three hundred and twenty acres of land by auction ;
any improvement to the land would be taken into consideration. If he did not do
this, he exposed himself to the risk of being ousted from his position by any other
squatter who had conformed to the prescribed conditions.
This proclamation met with the worst possible reception from the people. This
is comprehensible on the part of the menaced cattle breeders ; but all other circles
were intensely exasperated, partly at the contents of the proclamation, partly at the
want of consideration with which Gipps had treated the legislative council of
New South Wales, which had existed since 1842 ; he had neither laid his plan
before it nor made any official announcement of his decision in the matter.
Indignation ran so high that petitions were sent to the English parliament and
even to the queen, in order to obtain a revocation of the edict, or at least a mitigation
of its terms. But Gipps impressed upon the home government that the continu-
ance of the practice which had hitherto obtained would soon deprive the crown of
all available land ; and by this argument and by proving that the greatest outcry
was made by the largest landed proprietors he succeeded in upholding his enact-
268 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
ments ; only in small points was any consideration shown to the squatters. On
the whole, it cannot be denied that the proclamation of 1844 was bound to injure
the colony as well as the cattle breeders, if we reflect on the bad economic condi-
tion of Australia. This was intimately connected with another question.
(yS) The Transportation Question. — During the first four decades of the co-
lonial development of -Australia the question whether the introduction of English
convicts was useful or harmful did not come forward. It was only at the time
when the free settlers began to outnumber the others, and the influx of respectable
English countrymen produced an adequate supply of free labour, that a movement
made itself felt in favour of checking or diverting the still numerous arrivals of
criminals from the old country. In favour of this agitation was the noticeable
fact that the presence of so many persons of low morality in the country l had a
most detrimental effect on the characters of both old and young. The number of
crimes and misdemeanours committed by them reached an alarming figure. The
colony received an annual subsidy of £200,000 to defray the cost of maintaining
the convicts, and out of the subsidy there was a substantial balance available for
public works. The system also meant cheap labour. But these were poor set-offs
to the moral degradation for which the system was responsible, — so at least
thought one party of the colonists.
At the same time there would have been no idea of any change in the existing
conditions had not an equally strong movement in favour of the abolition of an
institution which had proved such a failure arisen in England. It had been
observed that there also transportation was to blame for the terrible increase of
crimes. While the population of England, as Alfred Zimmerman states, had
increased between 1805 and 1841 by 79 per cent, the number of crimes had risen
by 482 per cent; and from 1834 to 1845 as many as 38,844 prisoners were trans-
ported. Transportation was not reckoned as a punishment in the circles which it
concerned. It was owing to this movement that a commission appointed by the
lower house recommended that the transportation of criminals to New South
Wales and Van Diemen's Land should be at once discontinued, and expressed its
opinion that it was desirable to facilitate the emigration of prisoners to other
countries when they had served their sentences. These resolutions went too far
for the Australians, although they had so often petitioned for the discontinuance
of transportation. They feared to lose the cheap labour hitherto available, and
begged, therefore, but without success, that the existing arrangement should be
continued. The penal colony of Moreton Bay, established in 1826, was done away
with in 1839 ; and on May 22, 1840, New South Wales was struck out from the
list of countries to which prisoners could be transported. Only Van Diemen's
Land and Norfolk Island retained temporarily their old character (cf. pp. 269 and
273).
This step, which was very important also from the philanthropic standpoint,
entailed a series of hard years for New South Wales. In 1839 the amount of the
land sold to colonists reached 285,900 acres; in 1840 it was only 189,400 acres;
it dwindled in 1841 to 86,300, and in 1842 to 21,900 only. The cause for this
remarkable shrinkage was, firstly, the want of labour, which became felt as soon
1 Out of 60,794 inhabitants of New South Wales, there were in the year 1833 110 fewer than 16,151
convicts, and in 1836, 27,831.
Australia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 269
as the sending over of criminals was discontinued, and, next, the general industrial
depression which rapidly spread over the whole country. This was produced by
the fall in the prices of all provisions, which was intimately connected with the
reduced requirements of the prison authorities ; by the discontinuance of the main-
tenance subsidy hitherto contributed by England ; and, lastly, by the circumstance
that though prices sank, the wages of labourers did not fall in the same ratio.
Then there was the fact that precious metals were not yet obtained in the country
itself, and that, with the great falling off' in the sales of land, the government coffers
were soon at a low ebb. In order to replenish them, measures were taken to collect
the numerous outstanding quit-rents, and this again caused new difficulties among
the settlers. Nor were matters improved when a new law was promulgated in
1842 which fixed the minimum price for an acre at a pound sterling. The sales
of land fell off still more. In 1843 4,800 acres, and in 1844 only 4,200, were sold.
It was only when the crisis ended that these figures improved once more to 7,200
acres in 1845, and 7,000 acres in 1846.
The change for the better coincides with the fall of the ministry of Peel on
June 26, 1846. The new colonial secretary, Earl Grey, at once returned to the old
paths and allowed the concession of pasturage rights for fourteen years, with the
right of pre-emption. At the same time the regulations as to the recovery of the
quit-rent were considerably modified. The land legislation in the succeeding year
went still farther in this direction, since on March 9, 1847, the governor of New
South Wales received authority to let in the uncolonised districts tracts of 16,000
or 32,000 acres for eight or fourteen years. Each lessee received with his contract
the right to acquire 640 acres at the fixed price of £640 sterling as a homestead,
and to have the lease renewed after the expiration of the fourteen years for a
further term of five years. The rent was based on the number of the head of
stock ; a run which was large enough for 4,000 sheep was to cost £10 sterling.
The lease at the same time gave the lessee the right of pre-emption. The land
question in New South Wales thus obtained its definite settlement for a decade
and a half. The new regulations did not, indeed, meet with universal assent ; on
the contrary, in consequence of the renewed outbreak of wild speculation in land,
and the loss suffered by the already permanently settled districts, violent demon-
strations were made in these latter. The government, however, had neither incli-
nation nor time to destroy the work so laboriously brought to a close and to begin
again ; so the cries for alteration died away unheard.
The cause of this policy of the mother country lay in the difficulty of finding
room for her criminals now that transportation to New South Wales was abolished.
Van Diemen's Land was soon overcrowded, but the plan of founding a new convict
settlement in North Australia was shown to be impracticable. At the same time
the thought of once more stocking with convicts the districts of East Australia,
which had been so capable of receiving them for more than half a century, forced
itself forward ; and all the more so as the colony of Port Phillip (since 1851 " Vic-
toria"), which had arisen meanwhile in the south, cried out loudly for cheap
labour, and in New South Wales there were still many landowners .who earnestly
desired to see the restoration of the old condition of things, with its abundance of
workers. Both encouraged the home government (1848) to resume the old policy.
The act of 1840 was repealed, and the institution of new penal colonies was
•contemplated.
270 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
These plans were not carried out. In the first place, there was already too
general and too deep-rooted a belief in the ruinous results of transportation to New
South Wales ; and, secondly, the opposition of the free labourers, who had now
become numerous, to the threatened competition was so vigorous and persistent
that the oldest of the Australian colonies, at any rate, remained spared for the
future from the unwelcome gift. Only two shiploads of convicts were sent over
in 1849. The one ship was allowed to land her freight at Sydney, when the con-
victs were at once secretly hired by private persons and sent up country; the
other, which tried to land at Melbourne, had to return with all on board. The
vigorous opposition of the people did not prove ineffective in the sequel. In 1851
New South Wales, which between 1788 and 1839 had received not less than
59,788 convicts, finally ceased to be considered as a sphere for transportation. The
prospects for Victoria were hardly less favourable; and in 1853 Van Diemen's
Land, which since 1803 had received the enormous number of 67,655 convicts
from the mother country, and at that time sheltered 20,000 of the worst criminals,
gained exemption for the future from any further influx. After 1853 only Western
Australia was still employed as a transportation district ; and since South Australia
from the first had been constituted on a different principle, the institution did
not last much longer. It was abolished there also in 1868, after some 10,000 con-
victs had been brought into the country between 1849 and 1868. Since that time
Australia has been allowed to possess a population uniformly composed of free
colonists.
B. THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE DAUGHTER COLONIES DOWN
TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(a) The Effect on Colonisation produced ly the Wider Exploration of the Con-
tinent. — The internal development of New South Wales, which was shown
conspicuously during the forties and fifties by the treatment of the land question
and the transportation question, was accompanied by a corresponding widening of
the sphere of colonisation. But while the land question chiefly hinged on the
distribution of the districts which lay roughly within the boundaries of modern
New South Wales, this territorial expansion went far beyond such limits. In the first
enthusiasm of early colonisation, attempts were made to cover the whole continent
at once ; but when the deficiency of their powers was recognised the settlers were
content to occupy some few districts, which were very unequally distributed along
the coast of the continent ; for while they were numerous in the southeast and east,
the distant west lay isolated, and the north was entirely uncolonised.
This peculiar distribution is very closely connected with the history of the rise
of the different daughter colonies of New South Wales ; this again was strongly in-
fluenced by the course of the geographical exploration of Australia. As a general
rule exploration came first, and colonisation followed. This order of things was
only reversed in the founding of Western Australia ; there colonisation began in
one part which had long been known ; but the exploration of the hinterland was
the concern of later decades.
The successful expedition of Wentworth, Blaxland, and Lawson, in the year
1812, across the Blue Mountains into the interior (p. 261), had fired the zeal for
exploration. The years 1817 and 1818 saw the discovery by J. Oxley of the exten-
£23? ""I HISTORY OF THE WORLD 271
sive grazing grounds known as the Liverpool Plains. In 1824, two young colonists,
Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, were the first to reach the vicinity of Gee-
long, near modern Melbourne, from Sydney, having traversed the whole southeast
of the continent, past the sources of the Murrumbidgee and the Murray. At the
same time Allan Cunningham, the botanist, continued the explorations of Oxley in
the north as far as the Darling Downs (1827). Finally hi the years 1828 and
1829, came the important journeys of Charles Sturt in the district watered by the
Darling and Murray Eivers ; these journeys not only threw new light on the river
system of the country, but also guided the colonial expansion of Australia into
other paths. In this respect particularly all these travels were rich in results.
The first successful founding of Port Phillip is the direct consequence of the jour-
ney of Hume and Hovell. Various sheep farmers of the interior followed Allan
Cunningham's tracks, and thus laid the real foundation of the later Queensland.
The favourable report by Sturt on the district between the lower Murray and the
Gulf of St. Vincent was entirely responsible for the colonisation of South Australia.
The travels of later years did not, with one exception, produce any political results,
when once the foundation of the new States had been laid. Geographically they
are not, for the most part, inferior to the earlier essays in exploration, and cer-
tainly brought more definite information as to the industrial value or worthlessness
of the soil than the first rapid journeys. This applies, particularly, to the expedi-
tions which took as their object the accurate investigation of the river system of
the Darling-Murray, the travels, that is to say, of Major Thomas Livingstone
Mitchell, who succeeded in accomplishing his survey after six years of strenuous
effort ; it also applies to the discovery of the interior of Victoria (" Australia Felix ")
by the same traveller, and not less to the enterprises of the brave Edward John
Eyre (born 1815, died January, 1902) on the soil of inland South Australia, in
the low-lying lake region, and on the terribly barren south coast as far as King
George's Sound (1839-1841).
Finally similar results were achieved by numerous exploring parties in the
heart of Western Australia. The majority of these travellers could not bring back
very pleasant reports. Apart from Victoria, all accounts of the industrial value
of the country were discouraging or absolutely deterrent. The northeast alone
formed a striking exception ; there later travels accomplished results which, to
some degree, are comparable to those of the first explorers. It was the journeys of
Ludwig Leichhardt which can claim this marvellous effect, and Queensland and
North Australia are the regions which owe their real discovery and opening up to
a German. It is not too much to say that Leichhardt's splendid expedition from
Darling Downs to Port Essington (1844-1846) increased the possible area of
colonisation by about a million square miles, or one-third of the whole continent.
The colonists only required to follow the steps of the explorer, in order to come
into possession of an almost incalculable expanse of profitable land.
A peculiar feature of all Australian exploration before the middle of the
nineteenth century was its restriction to the edge of the continent; the centre
was not reached. The explanation is found in the novelty of the sphere of work.
Until the broad strip of territory along the edge was thoroughly explored in most
of its parts, there was no motive to attack the real heart of the country. Even
when, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the centre was chosen as a goal,
the want of any tangible attraction greatly checked the course of exploration.
272 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
(b) The Colonial History of Tasmania ( Van Diemen's Land). — Of the six
colonies which compose the Commonwealth of Australia, only three, Tasmania,
Victoria, and Queensland, are offshoots from New South Wales ; South Australia
and Western Australia (like New Zealand also) were, on the contrary, founded by
direct colonisation from England. Considering the enormous difficulties with
which New South Wales had permanently to contend, this circumstance is not sur-
prising. In the case of Western Australia, the mere distance from the east coast
of the continent was sufficient to restrain native enterprise. But South Australia
was, in its origin, so hazardous an experiment, that the government in Sydney did
well to play the part of an unconcerned spectator. In other respects even there,
east of the Great Australian Bight, the question of distance was not devoid of im-
portance. It is, at least, no accident that the three daughter colonies lie in one
zone with their mother colony ; that Van Diemen's Land, an island comparatively
far away from Sydney, was colonised as the first offshoot, to the complete neglect
of the neighbouring parts of the mainland ; and that even the first steps toward
founding Victoria were not taken from Sydney, but from Van Diemen's Land.
Seldom has the natural advantage which attaches to the position of an island
facing a wide stretch of opposite coast been so clearly shown as here.
The first step of the Australian mother colony towards the establishment of
independent offshoots was the founding of the penal colony of Van Diemen's
Land in the year 1803. The cause of this settlement was primarily the fear of
French schemes of annexation, which more than once had given rise to the erection
of military posts on the coast of Australia. In the next place, the English govern-
ment did not think it advisable to concentrate too large a number of criminals in
any one place ; a small convict settlement on Norfolk Island had already been
founded under the influence of this idea, but had not proved successful. Van
Diemen's Land seemed, both in point of size and of remoteness from the continent,
a more desirable place than Norfolk Island for the confinement of dangerous crimi-
nals. To carry out these intentions, Governor King sent Lieutenant Bowen with a
detachment of soldiers and some convicts to Van Diemen's Land in June, 1803. A
settlement called Restdown, a name later corrupted into Risdon, was founded on
the left shore of the estuary of the Derwent.
About this same time the plan had been formed in England of colonising the
shores of the recently discovered Port Phillip on the southeast corner of the main-
land. The execution of the plan was intrusted to Colonel Collins, a man who had
gone to Port Jackson as a judge in the first convict ship, had been advocate-gen-
eral of New South Wales for a long time, and happened then to be in London.
The expedition, consisting of two ships with four hundred convicts and the neces-
sary warders, landed on the south side of Port Phillip, near the site of the modern
Sorrento. Small excursions into the country soon showed it to be bare and inhos-
pitable, and as Collins also, after prolonged search, found no water, lie abandoned
the district on January 27, 1804, in order to take his people over to Van Diemen's
Land, a course which Governor King sanctioned at his request. He sailed directly
for the estuary of the Derwent, broke up the colony of Bowen there, and founded
a new joint settlement on the right bank of the river at the foot of Mount Welling-
ton. He called the place, in honour of Lord Hobart, the colonial minister of the
day, Hobart Town, a name abbreviated in 1881 to Hobart. The north of the island
was also occupied. Simultaneously with Collins's expedition, and again, owing to
ftS?""1] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 273
the fear of a French occupation, Colonel Paterson conducted another troop of con-
victs from Sydney to Van Diemen's Land, where, on the west shore of Port Dal-
rymple, Yorktown was immediately founded. Its first inhabitants could not make
themselves at home there, and in 1806 they were taken further into the interior
and settled in a locality called Launceston, after King's native town in Cornwall.
The occupation of this new field for colonisation from opposite sides had greatly
hastened the exploration of the island, and, with it, the knowledge of its economic
advantages ; but the first steps had been taken without the orders of the home
government and by no means to its satisfaction. The permanent shortage in pro-
visions, which had shown itself in the early days of colonisation in New South
Wales and Norfolk Island, soon was felt in the newly planted colony. The cause
was primarily the strict embargo on the landing of any except convict ships ; and
next the complete economic dependence on New South Wales. Under ordinary
conditions this would not have led to inconvenience ; but when, as happened in
the year 1806, owing to the great floods of the river Hawkesbury, supplies ran
short in the mother colony, the position of all the settlers could not but be the
more precarious, since about that time (1807) the number of the inhabitants of
Van Diemen's Laud was increased by the entire population of Norfolk Island —
a settlement which had always proved somewhat of a failure. The conditions
of life in Van Diemen's Land under these circumstances did not for the moment
appear hopeful. For a long time the government was forced to leave it to every
convict to find his own food, clothing, and shelter. Since the flesh of the kangaroo
was known to be a suitable article of food, the convicts at once scattered over the
whole interior. This was advantageous for the exploration of the country, but not
calculated to produce law and order among the colonists, and still less to main-
tain good relations with the aborigines (cf. p. 247). The process of extermination
was cruel and pitiless ; but it had at any rate the merit of being brief and vigorous,
for the whole white population went against the black fellows like one man. The
convict killed them from sheer lust of blood, the settler chased them on the plea
of self-defence, and the government tried to catch them from the wish to acquire
territory. The effect of these combined efforts was thoroughly complete; the
famous "black war" of 1830, with the costly "drive" of Governor Arthur
(p. 248), came almost too late.
The mutual relations of the whites were not so simply settled. The aggressor
here was the convict only, while the mass of the settlers and the government were
the injured party. Unequal as it was, this struggle delayed the political and eco-
nomic development by fully two decades. To many a convict, who had been given
leave for a kangaroo hunt, but especially to the numerous prisoners who had es-
caped from the gaols, it did not occur to return from their rovings in the interior
to the yoke of servitude. They soon acquired a taste for the free life of the bush,
formed themselves into bands, which lived by plundering the white settlers, and
with this comfortable vocation, which was disastrous to the prosperity of the colony,
laid the foundation for that wild bushranging which up to 1830 was such a curse
to Van Diemen's Land, and spread later to the mainland (cf. p. 263). Both classes
of fugitives had cause enough for this renunciation of human society. It had
always been the custom throughout Australia to hand over the convicts to the
settlers as labourers, a proceeding that, in the case of the rougher part of the
settlers, did not always lead to humane treatment ; merciless flogging for the slight-
VOL. II — 18
274 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
est offence was the mildest penalty. Nevertheless those who were suffering under
the yoke of a private individual might call themselves lucky in comparison with
the other unfortunates, who were kept in the penal establishments erected by gov-
ernment, of which Macquarie Harbour, set up in 1821, and Port Arthur, which was
added in 1832, were the most notorious in Van Diemen's Land. Many of the in-
mates preferred to put an end to their existence ; others broke prison only to die
in the trackless woods. The few who eventually succeeded in escaping had every
motive for showing no consideration to the free settlers of every kind. Bobbery,
arson, and murder were the distinguishing features of colonial life in Van Diemen's
Land. The energetic Governor Arthur at last succeeded, by a rapid campaign, in
checking the evil for a time at least (1825-1826). Twenty years later, under
Governor Wilmot, it revived with all the greater force.
Considering all the misery which the bushrangers brought upon the island, it
was fortunate that the outrages by which they thoroughly intimidated the settlers
were mostly confined to the interior ; the south and north coasts remained, on the
whole, free from such calamities, and were therefore able to develop steadily but
slowly. Collins himself, who died at Hobart Town in 1810, did not live to see
much of this progress. He had laid the foundations for it when he began to con-
struct (in 1807) the marvellous road from Launceston to Hobart Town, but, under
the prevailing conditions, it had not lain in his power to develop it farther. Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Davey, his successor, only arrived at Hobart Town at the beginning
of 1813. In the interval, Governor Macquarie (p. 260) had paid his first visit
(November, 1811), which was an important event for Van Diemen's Land, since
Macquarie with characteristic energy flooded the island with an infinity of new
schemes, urged the construction of roads, public buildings, even whole towns, and,
what was most essential, succeeded in awakening the public spirit of the better
classes. Now, for the first time, a systematic organisation was noticeable, which
soon showed itself in the proclamation of Hobart Town as the capital of the country
in the year 1812. Davey's term of office, which lasted until 1817, hardly carried
out the extensive plans of Macquarie. Jenks says of him : " Davey seems to have
treated his office more or less as a joke. He was totally without ceremony and
would drink and jest with any one." Bushranging alone was an eyesore to him,
and the wish to suppress it finally led him to exercise his office. His first act was
to place the whole island under martial law ; but besides this he forbade any in-
habitant to leave his house at night without permission. If, under this regime,
there was any progress at all it was entirely due to private persons. In 1815 the
colony was already in a position to export wheat, and in the following year salted
meat, to Sydney. In 1816, the first newspaper was started in Hobart Town. When
Davey left, the white population counted quite three thousand souls, and an equally
large number of acres were under cultivation. But there was not yet any cattle
breeding or sheep farming. These industries were introduced in the succeeding
years. Davey's place was filled by William Sorell, an able man, whose chief con-
cern was not to place free and respectable immigrants amongst a population com-
posed of convicts ; he next turned his attention to the economic development of
the island as well as to the suppression of bushrangiug. He, like Davey, was un-
able to achieve great results in that field ; on the other hand, he had attracted
settlers in large masses, thanks to the favourable terms which he offered. Not only
did the government grant free allotments of land, but it also supplied food for six
.
'"*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
mouths, lent the entire stock of cattle required at the outset as well as the first
seed corn, and, besides this, guaranteed a minimum price for the entire produce in
grain and meat. When, in 1821, Governor Macquarie set foot for the second and
last time on the soil of Van Diemen's Land after an interval of ten years, the white
population amounted to 7,400 souls, who had 14,000 acres under cultivation and
180,000 sheep with 35,000 cattle on their pasturages. The introduction of syste-
matic sheep farming coincided indeed with Sorell's governorship, but the credit
belongs to the Colonel Paterson so frequently mentioned in these pages, who
induced the experienced sheep breeder, MacArthur (p. 257), to send him over a
shipload of his famous flock. An attempt, made in 1819, to put wool on the
English market failed lamentably ; in 1822, however, 794 bales were exported and
gladly received by the market. At the present time the wool trade has long been
recognised as the mainstay of the colony. It is easy to understand that under
these circumstances the colonists regretted the departure of the governor, who was
also personally popular. When he was recalled in 1823, the home government
was actually petitioned to appoint him for a second term.
Sorell's successor, Arthur (1823-1836), did not do so well, in spite of a long
administration and great services. His personal character was partly to blame for
this ; partly, also, his stiff official bearing toward the free settlers. Arthur's en-
trance on office was connected with important changes in the constitutional posi-
tion of Van Diemen's Land. The rapid growth of the white population during the
last few years had made the want of an independent government widely felt. Not
only were all questions touching the common interests dependent upon Sydney,
but even the matters of daily occurrence were decided there. Weeks were always
lost- in this way, and even though Macquarie tried to check this evil by conferring
larger powers on the lieutenant-governor, the position was bound to become intoler-
able. This view was held in London; the same act of parliament, in 1823, which
limited the powers of the governor of New South Wales, entirely severed Van
Diemen's Land from the parent colony. It was declared an independent colony,
received its own law courts, as well as a special executive assembly, and, in short,
was put on the same footing as New South Wales. Colonel Arthur was appointed
the first governor.
In spite of the flourishing condition of the island, there was no lack of scope
for his work; on the contrary, his twelve years' tenure of office was the most
eventful in the whole history of Van Diemen's Land. The settlement of the
convict question which met him at the outset demanded all his energies. Soon
after his arrival a band of more than one hundred criminals had escaped from Port
Maequarie and pillaged the island. The strengthened military force proved
sufficient to check their excesses ; and one hundred and three of the culprits were
executed by the orders of the governor. Clemency towards criminals was not
a characteristic of Arthur, although he thought his island was only intended for
them, an opinion which Macquarie in his day had held about Australia. Arthur
regarded the free settlers as a necessary evil. The outcome of this biased attitude
was an unremitting, if not exactly paternal, solicitude for the prisoners. When
in 1832 Macquarie Harbour on the west coast had to be given up on account of
the excessive density of the population, he established a new settlement at Port
Arthur on the southeast, where the prison system was raised to a veritable science.
The second task of Arthur was the native question (cf. p. 248). Notwith-
276 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter HI
standing all the unrest which the struggles with the convicts as well as with the
aborigines produced in the island, they were not serious enough to check the
growth of the colony in any sensible degree; there was a surprising increase
during Arthur's term of office both in the population and the area of cultivated
land. At his arrival the population had amounted to something over ten thousand
souls; when he left in 1836, this total was quadrupled, and the area of cultivation
had similarly increased. The number of sheep then reached nearly a million;
and the exports, which in 1823 had amounted to approximately £25,000 sterling,
had risen to over £500,000. In order to open up the industries of the island
on a large scale, the Van Diemen's Laud Company had been formed in England,
which obtained a concession first of two hundred and fifty thousand acres, and then
of one hundred thousand more. It exercised an influence on the development
of the colony up to quite recent times. For educational purposes there were
twenty-nine schools, while religious needs were provided for by eighteen churches.
Peace was at last concluded between the government and the newspaper press,
with which Arthur for years had waged as bitter a war as Sir Ralph Darling in
Australia (see p. 263) ; after 1828 complete freedom of the press prevailed. On
the whole Arthur and the colony could be satisfied with the results.
The subsequent fortunes of Van Diemen's Land up to the beginning of the second
period in Australian development, which commenced in the same way and about
the same time for all the colonies, can be given in a few lines. Arthur's successor
was Sir John Franklin (1836-1843), who had already gained renown by his
exploration of the North Polar regions. Fitted by his whole disposition for
scientific pursuits, he was the less competent to face the numerous difficulties of
his responsible position, since the decline of Australian industries began in his
time. Yet he too did good service to the island. The organisation of the educa-
tional system was entirely his work. He was further the founder of the Tasmanian
Society, now known as the Eoyal Society of Tasmania ; he enabled William Jackson
Hooker to complete his work on the flora of Tasmania, and finally initiated the
study of the geology and natural history of the island by encouraging numerous
travellers. His administration was the scientific era in Van Diemen's Land.
The brief administration of his successor, Sir Eardley Wilmot (1843-1846), was
occupied with the struggle between the colonists and the English government
about the abolition of transportation. Van Diemen's Land had always enjoyed
the dubious advantage of being provided with large masses of criminals in pro-
portion to its area. The detrimental effects of penal colonisation in its moral and
economic bearings had therefore been most noticeable there, and in 1835 there
commenced a systematic agitation of which the object was to prevent convicts
from being landed on the island for the future. This agitation did not completely
stop even in the succeeding years, and when at the beginning of the " forties " the
prisoners of Moreton Bay were taken across to the island, it immediately flared up
again brightly. Fuel was added to the flame when, under Wilmot's government,
two thousand prisoners were brought over from Norfolk Island, which after 1825
had once more become a penal settlement, and when it was seen that new batches
were constantly arriving from England. Up to 1844 the number of criminals
sent to Van Diemen's Land amounted to forty thousand. The most worthless
of these were the Norfolk Islanders, many of whom escaped to the bush, where
they combined in marauding gangs of from one hundred to five hundred men, and
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 277
waged a guerilla warfare on every one. They burnt the houses, killed the inhabi-
tants, drove away the cattle, and revived the worst features of the old bushranging.
This was the climax. The agitation against the system of penal colonisation
became general. A great league against it was founded, and in the government of
Sir William Denison, who had succeeded Wilmot in 1846, after several years of
effort, transportation to Van Diemen's Land was finally abolished in 1853. This
reform was accompanied by a change in the name of the colony, which has since
then been known as Tasmania.
(c) Port Phillip (Victoria). — "The colony of Victoria might, with some justice,
be spoken of as a granddaughter rather than a daughter of New South Wales "
(Jenks). It was finally founded by settlers from Van Diemen's Land ; it was purely
Australian only in the period before it was definitely colonised. This begins with
the attempt of Colonel Collins, with which we are already familiar (p. 272), to
establish a penal settlement on the shores of Port Phillip in 1803. The plan
failed, with the result that no one for more than twenty years troubled about a
•country which was considered "unproductive and unpromising." In 1825 the
attempt was renewed in consequence of the favourable reports of Hume and
Hovell, and also with the object of forestalling the French. The penal sta-
tion of Dumaresq was founded on Westernport which was mistaken for Port
Phillip ; no water, however, could be found, and the settlement was discontinued in
1828. This concludes the preliminary stage in the history of the colony. The
real founding of Port Phillip, as modern Victoria was called until 1851, was due
to private enterprise. The few fishermen and sailors who in the first half of the
nineteenth century led a half-savage existence on the eastern parts of the south
•coast of Australia, were joined in 1834 by a family named Henty, which settled in
Portland Bay. The members of it had already taken part in the unlucky enter-
prise in Western Australia (cf. p. 280), had afterwards hoped to find free land
in Van Diemen's Land, and now, since they were at the end of their resources,
ventured on a bold plunge into the unknown. The special permission to settle
for which they applied was at first refused by the authorities, but subsequently
granted, in consideration of the still dreaded encroachment of the French.
Henty's success prompted further enterprise, which was once more directed
toward Port Phillip, — the true nucleus of the modern colony of Victoria, — and
Las been for this reason regarded by many as the actual starting point of this State.
The leader of this attempt was John Batman, a wealthy sheep farmer of Van
Diemen's Land. He started in May, 1835, with several companions for the south
•coast of Australia, inspected the country, and "bought" on June 6, 1835, for a
couple of dozen axes, knives and scissors, some blankets, thirty mirrors, and two
hundred handkerchiefs, with the stipulation of a yearly payment of about X200
.sterling in goods, two vast territories comprising together six hundred thousand
acres, an area more than the size of Cambridgeshire. The consequence was the
founding of an association of various settlers of Van Diemen's Land, the Port
Phillip Association, and the planting of the first settlement in Geelong. The
•contract of sale was sent to England ; the government naturally termed it worth-
less. If the country was English, the natives had no right to alienate the land
without the governor's sanction ; if it was not English, the association had no
claim on the protection of England. The association, realising in the end that it
278 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Cha Pter ni
had no case, was content with twenty thousand acres, worth then some .£7,500.
In 1836 it was dissolved.
In England there was at first little inclination to allow a new colony to be
founded ; the cost of administration promised to be formidable, and the recently
planned settlement in the adjoining South Australia would be thus unnecessarily
exposed to the danger of a keen competition. Circumstances were, however, stronger
than the will of the government. Even on August 26, 1835, Governor Bourke of
New South Wales had prohibited the occupation of land round Port Phillip with-
out his permission; but only a year later, in September, 1836, he and the English
government saw themselves compelled by an unexpectedly large influx of immi-
grants to open the country to colonisation. After this concession, development
was rapid. The administration had in 1835 started with a single government offi-
cial, a Captain Lonsdale. In the following year it was enlarged by a regular police
force, with whom three land surveyors were associated. In 1837 Sir Robert Bourke
himself laid the foundation of Melbourne and Williamstown, and in 1842 the
former received a municipal government. In June, 1836, there were calculated to
be one hundred and seventy-seven colonists with twenty-six thousand sheep ; two
years later both figures were tripled or quadrupled. At the same time the exports
of the young colony amounted to £12,000 sterling, while the imports reached
£115,000. As in New South Wales, the crown lands were sold by public auction,
except for the period 1840-1842, when the plan of allotment at a fixed price was tried.
Owing to the strong tide of immigration, by the end of 1841 no fewer than 205,748
acres had been transferred to fixed proprietors, and in return £394,300 had been
paid to the land fund, from which source the expenses of government were de-
frayed. This large sum illustrates the superabundance of money in the country
at the time. Owing to the scarcity of workmen, wages of ten shillings a day and
upward were not considered high. An ox cost from £12 to £15, a horse £100 or
more, a sheep up to £3. Champagne, so Alfred Zimmerman tells us, was drunk in
such quantities that the streets could have been paved for miles with the bottles.
The inevitable reaction followed. The over-production of corn and cattle,
which very soon appeared, led in every department to a collapse of prices, ending in
a regular bankruptcy. Wages rapidly sank ; the price of an ox was hardly as many
shillings as it had fetched pounds in the past, and hundreds of businesses suspended
payment. The crisis was violent but short ; it was ended by the middle of the
" forties." Since that time, apart from the gold fever which set in a little later aur]
the declaration of the independence of the colony, no event of great importance
has disturbed the development of Port Phillip. It made continuous but rapid
progress. In 1840 Melbourne was declared a free port; in 1843 the trade of the
colony amounted to £341,000 ; in 1848 it had reached £1,049,000. The proceeds
of the sales of land increased in proportion. Of the £250,000 which composed
the whole revenue of the colony in the year 1850, more than half came from that
source alone. The outgoings were thirty per cent less than the incomings.
It is pleasant to record that good relations existed from the first between the
colonists and natives. This is partly traceable to the sensible behaviour of the
early settlers ; it is partly due to the services of William Buckley, whose romantic
adventures are well known. He had been a convict, and had escaped from Collins's
expedition in 1804. He then lived thirty-two years among the natives, and now
was the mediator between the two races. We hardly hear of any outrages, fights-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 279.
with the blacks, or similar occurrences, in the history of Port Phillip. The settlers
could extend their sheep runs farther and farther into the interior without moles-
tation. In 1849 Port Phillip owned more than a million sheep ; the export of wool
amounted to nearly thirteen million pounds.
This splendid growth brought up as early as 1842 the question of the political
severance of the colony from New South Wales. Nevertheless, a whole series of
representations to the English government on the subject produced no effect. The
colonists then, in July, 1848, resolved on a step as bold as it was original. Six
representatives should have been elected to the legislative council which sat at
Sydney. The candidates were requested to withdraw their applications, and the
English secretary of state for the colonies, Earl Grey, was chosen as their solitary
representative. The scheme was, of course, apparent. At the subsequent election
in October, the government insisted on the nomination of proper deputies. But
the object of the colonists was so far attained that the separation of the two
colonies was now seriously considered in England. The board of trade took up
the question, the ministry gave way, and in the Constitution Act of 1850 the set-
tlement (numbering seventy-seven thousand souls) was raised to an independent
colony under the name of Victoria. The news of this decision reached Melbourne
in November, 1850 ; but it was not until July 1, 1851, that the new order of things
came- into force.
(cf) Queensland. — The expedition, which had been made by Oxley (p. 270)
along the east coast north of Sydney had prompted several attempts at colonisation.
Settlements had been founded at Port Essington, on Melville Island, and at other
points, but no results had been obtained. When, then, a little later the mainten-
ance of the convicts in Van Diernen's Land began to cause difficulties, the expedient
was adopted of founding a penal station on Moreton Bay. This lasted until 1840,
and has, under the name of Brisbane, remained to the present day the seat of govern-
ment of the later Queensland. But it must not be regarded as the true nucleus of
the colony. In the first place, the presence of the penal station deterred all free set-
tlers from going there ; and next, the land in its neighbourhood was not offered for
sale. Queensland thus, at least for its first beginnings, showed a unique develop-
ment from the standpoint of political geography. It developed from the interior
toward the coast.
Queensland's real origin is traceable to the squatters (p. 265) who followed the
track of Allan Cunningham (p. 270) from New South Wales to the north. They
continually drove their flocks on further from the Liverpool Plains to the New Eng-
land district and the Darling Downs. These districts were even then the best pas-
ture grounds in the world, but suffered much from want of access to the sea, since
owing to the intervening chain of mountains the long detour by New South Wales
had to be taken before the value of the products could be realised. Even the dis-
covery of a difficult mountain path to Moreton Bay was of no use, since the authori-
ties absolutely prohibited the squatters from any communications with the place.
A change was first made in 1839 after the abolition of the penal station. Prac-'
ticable roads were now constructed over the mountains, public sale of land was
introduced in 1842, and the fresh stream of immigration was diverted into the
newly opened districts. Yet there was not at once a marked development ; good
land was abundant, but the labour to cultivate it was not forthcoming. In nine
years less than two thousand five hundred acres had been disposed of.
280 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
As was the case everywhere in Australia, there was first an outcry for convicts
as a makeshift. Men were not afraid to receive a batch of convicts which \v;is
refused admission into New South Wales in 1849, and finally, since after this
date no more convicts were sent out from England, they adopted the two-
edged expedient of importing Chinamen. Queensland, thanks to the action of
the mother country rather than through her own foresight, has been spared from
the transportation question. The more difficult Chinese question has never been
settled, and was revived in 1901, owing to the decreasing immigration of white
labourers. On the whole, those first coolies were of no use to the squatters. Racial
aversion made it difficult to employ them at the same time with white hands,
and the difficulty became an impossibility during the Chinese war of 1841-1842
(p. 108). A rumour spread that the coolies had formed a plan of putting poison
in the tea consumed by the whites ; and no white hand would stay on the same
station with a coolie.
Thus the labour question in Queensland remained for the moment unanswered.
The discoveries of gold made in Victoria and New South Wales in 1851 were only
•calculated to increase the deficiency of labourers in the country hitherto considered
•devoid of gold. The wish of the colonists for convicts was so great that efforts were
:soon made to obtain political separation from New South Wales, merely in order to
be able to reintroduce transportation. The first request was granted in 1859 ; the
northeast corner of Australia was proclaimed an independent colony under the
name of Queensland. The second request was refused. In the first place, the gen-
eral feeling throughout the whole of the rest of Australia was not favourable to
the system, and in the second place, Western Australia, a country more convenient
and involving a cheaper voyage, was still available for transportation.
The aspect of Queensland, at the moment when it received independence, was
essentially different from that of the other Australian colonies at the same stage in
their career. The entire white population amounted in 1859 to only thirty thou-
sand souls, who were equally distributed between the town and the country. There
were some twenty towns, of which Brisbane then contained four thousand inhabi-
tants, while others of them boasted only of some hundreds. The so-called town of
Allora had only fifty-five inhabitants. These settlements were mere villages, not
only from the small number of their inhabitants but in their essential nature ;
they did not show a trace of organised municipal government. The greater credit
is thus due to the certainty and rapidity with which all the authorities adapted
themselves to the new conditions suddenly burst upon them. Mr. Jenks is dis-
posed to regard the example of Queensland as proving the high capacity of the
Anglo-Saxon to adapt himself to any form of polity. And it is true that the
Queenslanders entered upon self-government without any such preliminary train-
ing as all the other Australian colonies had enjoyed in their gradual process of
political development.
(«) Western Australia. — Western Australia was founded directly from Eng-
land. It is true that a number of convicts had been sent in 1826 from Sydney to
the west coast of the continent in order to counteract any French schemes ; but
the establishment of the stations of Albany and Rockingham can hardly be termed
a colonisation in the proper sense of the word. The first real settlement was in
1829. In the previous year a Captain Stirling had published a glowing account
££$?""*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 281
of the district at the mouth of the Swan Eiver, which induced the government
to order Captain Fremantle to hoist the English flag there. But further measures
of the government failed from want of means.
The moving spirit of the private enterprise which first started the colonisation
was Thomas Peel. In combination with others he offered to send in the course of four
years ten thousand free emigrants to the Swan Eiver, on condition that, in return
for the cost, which he estimated at £300,000, an area of four million acres should
be assigned to him. When the government did not accept this offer, Peel consid-
erably reduced the scale of his scheme, and this time was successful. Under the
guidance of Captain Stirling, destined to be the governor of the new colony,
to whom one hundred thousand acres of land had been promised, the first band of
emigrants sailed from England in the spring of 1829, arrived in June on the Swan
Eiver, and founded at its mouth the town of Fremantle, and higher upstream the
town of Perth. In the course of the next year and a half thirty-nine emigrant
ships, with 1,125 colonists, attracted by eulogistic descriptions, followed the first
party to Western Australia. Fortune did not smile on the attempt ; there was
land enough and to spare, but there was a lack of workingmen, of roads, and of
markets.
Peel's plan had been to cultivate tobacco and cotton, sugar and flax, to breed
horses for India, and by fattening oxen and swine, to provide the English fleet
with salted meat. All this came to nothing ; the colonists themselves had hardly
enough to eat, and the larger their landed property, the greater their helplessness
and distress. Many settlers, and among them the Henty family (p. 277), left
the ungrateful soil of the colony ; others lost all they possessed ; Peel himself,
who had settled with two hundred colonists, is said to have lost £50,000. The
founders had, from the very beginning, never given a thought to the support
of the newcomers, nor had any one troubled about dividing the land even roughly,
to say nothing of a proper survey. It was nothing unusual for the settlers to lie
for months after their arrival shelterless on the shore, exposed without protection
to the scorching Australian sun, to sandstorms, and to violent downpours of
rain. Thus much of the labour that had been expended on the soil was wasted,
while the health of the people suffered. If they finally were in a position to
occupy the tract assigned to them, difficulties of another sort began. From the
very first hour the relations between the settlers and the aborigines were most
hostile ; and the aid of a troop of mounted police was required for the protection
of the former. Under these circumstances there could be no idea of progress,
in the sense in which it can be recorded of the majority of other Australian
colonies in their early days. Everything went on very slowly, especially as
immigration, after the first wave, absolutely came to a standstill. The few settlers
left in the land certainly did their utmost; they most energetically set about
breeding sheep and horses, laid the foundation of some other towns, and settled
King George's Sound. Development in the first six years did not go beyond this ;
of 1,600,000 acres distributed to the colonists as such, in 1834, only 564 acres
were under cultivation.
Some stimulus was given to development by the Western Australian Association,
founded by Major Irwin in 1835, which was intended to encourage emigration to
Western Australia and safeguard its interests in other countries. Among its mem-
bers, besides English gentlemen, were included some residents of Calcutta, who
282 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter m
contemplated the establishment of a health resort as well as a trading settlement.
The company benefited the colony in many ways ; but in spite of all agitation it
could not alter the slow course of the economic growth. In 1840 the population had
only amounted to twenty-three hundred souls; two years before the colonists had
received the privilege of sending four members to the legislative council (p. 268).
The year 1841 saw the formation of some large undertakings to exploit Western
Australia. One was a limited company founded by the Western Australian
Association, with the object of buying up cheaply the land once assigned to
Captain Stirling, and then disposing of it in small lots. One pound sterling was-
to be paid down for each acre. This plan never came into execution. The other
undertakings of the same Western Australian Association promised greater suc-
cess. At the suggestion of the traveller, George Grey, subsequently distinguished
as a civil servant (p. 285), a settlement which received the name of Australind
was founded in the Leschenault district on the north coast of Geographe Bay,
some hundred miles south of Perth. It was flourishing splendidly when the
company broke up; the small town still exists.
The want of labourers, which became more urgent from year to year, drove the
colony to follow the example of Queensland. In 1845 the council seriously
contemplated inviting German settlers, under the impression that the harsh treat-
ment of German immigrants in the United States would make it easy to divert
the stream. At the same time the advisability of admitting pauper immigrants
was considered. The most momentous resolution, however, was the introduction
of transportation. According to a resolution of the council of 1846, a certain
number of convicts, whose passage was to be provided at the cost of the mother
country, were to be admitted annually, in order to be employed on roadmaking
and other public works. The English government accepted the proposal only too
willingly. While it did nothing at all to help the execution of the two other
schemes, it lost no time in disembarking shipload after shipload of convicts on the
welcome new transportation territory, as Western Australia was officially declared
to be on May 1, 1849. After 1850 " ticket-of-leave " men were sent out, and
allowed freedom of movement within the colony, subject to the obligation of
periodically reporting themselves to the police.
In contrast to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, the colony of
Western Australia was greatly assisted by the introduction of penal colonisation.
By April, 1852, there were fifteen hundred transportees in the country, half of
whom were ticket-of-leave men. This number implied a large staff of officials,
and a stronger military force ; it also necessitated the construction of large build-
ings, for which the sum of £86,000 was granted by England alone. Thus money
and life were brought into the colony. The old colonists took heart again, a new
stream of free settlers flowed in, more and more land was bought and cultivated,
and the land fund grew in an encouraging fashion. Coal fields also were dis-
covered, guano beds were exploited, and sandalwood exported ; the Madras cavalry
began to obtain their remounts from Western Australia, and a pearl fishery was
started in Shark Bay. Under these circumstances it is not wonderful that the
white population, which had only amounted to five thousand in 1850, was now
trebled. The number of sheep and cattle, as well as the volume of trade, showed
a corresponding increase.
There was, however, a dark side to this bright picture. In spite of the increase
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 283
in sales of laud, the incomings did not cover the expenditure. In order to make
good this deficit, an arrangement had been made by which the ticket-of-leave men
should be able to buy their liberty at a price varying from £1 to £25, according
to the length of their sentence. But, in spite of the extensive use which the
trausportees, who in Western Australia belonged exclusively to the male sex,
made of this privilege, the measure was ineffectual ; the colony was more than
ever dependent on liberal subsidies from the mother country. This had an impor-
tant effect on political development, since this financial dependence, in connection
with the transportation which suited England, was the chief reason why Western
Australia was absolutely ignored when a responsible government was granted
to the other colonies. A third reason was the composition of the inhabitants and
their stage of civilization in 1850. Even in 1859, forty-one per cent of the male
population were actual or former convicts, and in most localities these convicts,
outnumbered the free colonists. The number of illiterate persons, excluding the
actual convicts, reached 37k per cent. It was absolutely impossible to place a com-
munity so constituted on an independent footing.
Western Australia was long in making up for its original inferiority to the
sister colonies. It lost, however, its character of a penal colony quicker than was
acceptable to the free and the emancipated colonists, who were spoilt by the cheap
price of labour and the sums of money spent by the mother country on transporta-
tion. The continuous influx of escaped criminals soon caused. bad blood in the
adjoining colonies, as well as the circumstance that many convicts from Western
Australia, on serving their sentence, turned their steps toward the east. In 1864,
Victoria raised a violent protest against the continuance of penal colonisation in
the far west of the continent, and demanded measures of repression. Finally, in
1868, the English government struck Western Australia out of the list of penal
colonies, after it had received in all 9,718 transportees. The complete ruin of the
colony, which the colonists who had been enriched by convict labour prophesied,
did not occur. But it cannot be denied that the development of Western Aus-
tralia was delayed by the suspension of transportation. It is only recently that
it has been able to meet its outgoings from its own resources, and not until 1890
did it receive self-government and attain the same footing as the other colonies.
But the discovery and working of large gold fields in the interior guarantee to itr
however, a more successful course of development.
(/) South Australia. — The founding of South Australia, which, like Western
Australia was colonised from England, was really due to the favourable accounts
brought back by the explorer Sturt as to the country seen by him at the mouth of
the Murray, and to the report of Captain Collet Barker, who was intrusted with
the exploration of the Gulf of St. Vincent. In consequence of this the South
Australian Land Company, which included, besides a number of members of par-
liament, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, was formed in London in 1831. Wakefield
had learnt from personal experience the defects of English prison life ; he saw the
only remedy in a systematically conducted removal of the superfluous English
population, which, in his opinion, plunged the masses into distress and misery and
assisted crime, to new scenes, such, for example, as South Australia, just then
coming into notice. According to his plan, large uncultivated tracts of land should
be assigned to a colonisation company provided with sufficient means, on the
284 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter w
understanding that it founded settled communities. The company was to indem-
nify itself for all initial expenditure by the sale of land at fixed prices ; the profits,
above that, were to be applied to the cost of bringing over English workmen to
the colony.1 In every colony there were to be neither more nor less hands avail-
able than required.
The government at first took up almost the same attitude toward Wakefield's
plans and the proposals of the South Australian Land Company as toward the
founders of Port Phillip (p. 271). There was a reluctance to sap existing settle-
ments by establishing new ones ; and, further, it seemed impolitic to confer legis-
lative rights on a private company. On the other hand, the influence of the
Wakefield family was strong, and possibly this new system might prove more
lasting than those previously adopted. The government therefore, in 1834, resolved
to make an attempt on the lines of Wakefield's plan. The means for the under-
taking were to be furnished by the company. The direction of land sales and
emigration was placed in the hands of three commissioners in London ; in the
colony itself the government reserved the right to nominate a governor and some
other officials, while the rest were to be nominated by the company. It was
definitely promised that no convicts should be transported from the United King-
dom to the colony. The first three ships sailed from England in February, 1836.
Two landed in July, on Kangaroo Island, where the passengers immediately began
to establish themselves on Nepean Bay ; the third ship, which did not arrive until
August, sailed to the coast of the mainland and the banks of the river Torrens.
The choice of this landing place by Colonel Light seemed to most of the new-
comers as unsuitable as the choice by them of Nepean Bay appeared to him.
In the next year, the votes of the colonists were finally given in favour of the
spot chosen by Light ; and the building of a town, which, at the wish of King
William IV, was called Adelaide, after his consort, was at once commenced.
The development of the young colony shows a bright and a gloomy side. The
existence of two sets of officials, and the numerous restrictions which were imposed
on the officials of the company, soon led to such friction that the majority of
both parties had to be recalled. These measures exercised little influence on the
purely economic development. In 1837 alone more than 60,000 acres of land
were sold, from which £43,151 accrued to the company. Up to the middle of 1839
a quarter of a million acres had been sold, bringing in £230,000. In 1840 there
were 10,000 settlers, who owned 200,000 sheep and 15,000 head of cattle.
The rapid and brilliant rise of South Australia, like that of Victoria, was fol-
lowed by a great financial crash. The frenzy for speculation in land had grown to
a prodigious extent ; and, although wages reached a giddy height (skilled workmen
earned up to fifty shillings a day), the profits to be made by speculation proved a
greater attraction and distracted many from industrial enterprise. In addition to
this, the second governor of the colony, Colonel Gawler, allowed himself to be led
into constructing large public buildings and parks, although the mother country
had expressly refused to bind herself to any contributions. The colony had very
soon to deal with a debt of £405,000. The South Australian Company was
equally to blame with Colonel Gawler for this turn of affairs. The head of the
1 This idea of an emigration fund raised by sales of land originated with Wakefield and was the essen-
tial feature of his system. It is discussed and warmly praised by Mill iu the last chapter of his " Political
Economy." — EDITOR.
£88*"*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 285
company, Angus, had also speculated in a manner quite contrary to the objects
which Wakefield had in view. He invested half the company's capital in land,
engaged in whale fishery, trading, and banking, and induced the colonists, by
guaranteeing them an excessively high interest on deposits, to intrust him with
their cash. The commissioners also did not rightly understand their duties. The
price which had been fixed for land before the founding of the colony was one
pound an acre ; huge tracts had been disposed of at that figure. But instead of
raising the price they took the astonishing step of reducing it to twelve shillings.
Some improvement of the situation was finally effected by the appointment of
George Grey to guide the colony. His name will always be conspicuous in the
history of the English colonies, but it is also famous in the field of ethnography.
On his return from his two journeys through Western Australia in 1837 to 1839
he had prepared a memorandum, showing the methods by which the British pos-
sessions in the South Seas and in South Africa should be administered. When
South Australia declared itself bankrupt in 1841, the opportunity was offered him
of putting his theory into practice. By his appointment to be governor in Ade-
laide the administration of the colonies practically was transferred to the English
government.
Grey found a heavy task awaiting him. The treasury was empty ; a host of
officials had eaten up the revenues of the colony, and the burden of debt was
crushing, notwithstanding that some of the bills drawn by Gawler upon the home
government, which had been dishonoured on presentation, were ultimately paid by
the English parliament. Grey's first step was to discontinue all building not
imperatively urgent, to dismiss superfluous officials and to lower the salaries of the
rest. An improvement was soon apparent. In 1841, out of 299,077 acres sold,
only 2,503 had been under cultivation ; at the end of 1842 there were more than
20,000 cultivated, and that with an increase in the population from 14,600 to
17,000 souls. Unfortunately for the colony the mother country was not willing
to take over the rest of the old burden of debt. Grey was neither able nor willing
simply to break with the existing financial methods ; he issued bills drawn on the
home government, but only a small part of them were paid. This caused ill-feel-
ing in South Australia, where the financial crisis reached its height in 1843.
Meanwhile the situation grew more tolerable, as rich veins of copper were dis-
covered and worked. From that time, South Australia has developed regularly
with a few trifling fluctuations, easily explicable from the youth of the under-
taking. The population amounted in 1848 to 38,600 whites, against 3,700 natives ;
the irade, in 1839 only £427,000, reached in 1849 the sum of £888,000, of which
£504,000 came from exports. Even the incomings grew on a corresponding scale ;
after 1845 they not only covered the outgoings, but furnished a considerable
surplus.
The term of office of George Grey, so fraught with blessings for South Aus-
tralia, ended in 1845. It was his fortune always to be placed in a position where
a keen sight and a tight grip were necessary ; for he was then removed to New
Zealand. The history of his unimportant successors is featureless except for the
efforts of the colonists to win political self-government. When the colony was
founded, the English government had intended to give it a constitution so soon as
the number of inhabitants reached fifty thousand. In 1842, when the system of
commissioners was abolished, a council of eight members, four of whom were offi-
286 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ur
<3ials, and four colonists selected by the governor, was placed under the governor.
In spite of the growing prosperity of South Australia, some years had yet to elapse
before the home government would make any further concession, although the in-
terests of the colonists were insufficiently represented by the new institution. It
then happened that in 1849 the population, contrary to expectation, amounted to
fifty-two thousand. The government kept faith, and, in 1850 South Australia
became a recognised colony. On August 20, 1851, a council of twenty-four mem-
bers met for the first time ; of these, two-thirds were elected by the colonists, eight
(but of these only four might be officials) were nominated by the governor.
C. THE COLONIES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUKY
(a) The Bestowal of Self-government. — The favourable and rapid development
of the younger Australian colonies in the second half of the " forties " had fostered,
among those English statesmen who were interested in the colonies, the idea that
the same measure of self-government should be granted them that New South
Wales had enjoyed since 1842. Van Diemen's Land and Port Phillip, which
were in a position to meet their outgoings entirely from their own resources, had
the foremost claim to the independent control of their revenues; but South
Australia also was rapidly approaching this same consummation. Western Aus-
tralia alone lagged behind. In 1847 these ideas took some tangible shape. Earl
Grey, then secretary of state for war and the colonies, openly expressed to the
governor of New South Wales his intention of granting to the young colonies
the constitution of 1842 ; in fact he wished to take a further step, and to establish
in all Australian colonies, by the side of the legislative council, an upper house,
whose members should be drawn from the town communities. Since a vigorous
protest against the last two heads of the plan was raised in Australia, he abandoned
them, but put the matter before the committee of the privy council for trade and
foreign plantations. As the result of their deliberations the committee recom-
mended the introduction of a constitution, modelled on that of New South
Wales, for Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, and Port Phillip, which latter was
to be separated from New South Wales. The elaboration of details was to be en-
trusted to the various parliaments ; but the committee expressed their expectation
that the customs duties and excise would at first require to be administered by the
British parliament. At the same time the committee advised the introduction
of a uniform tariff for all the colonies. The bill which was drafted in accordance
with the suggestions of the committee became law on August 5, 1850, under the
title, " An Act for the better government of her Majesty's Australian Colonies."
Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, and Victoria (hitherto Port Phillip) received
the constitution recommended by the committee; Western Australia had the
prospect of obtaining it so soon as it was able to defray the costs of its civil
administration. Every proprietor of land of the value of £100, who was at least
twenty-one years of age, had the franchise, as had every one who occupied a house
or rented a farm of the annual value of £10. The customs and excise were
settled on the understanding that the colonial governments decided their amount ;
but no differential duties were to be imposed. At the same time goods intended
for the use of English troops were not dutiable, and existing commercial contracts
were not to be prejudiced.
287
The first step toward the federation of the Australian colonies, which has just
been completed (see p. 296), was taken by Earl Grey, when, after the introduction
of the new constitution, he nominated the governor of New South Wales to be
governor-general of the four colonies, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and
South Australia. Grey had only wished to give visible expression to the idea of
identity of interests ; but, since he compelled the heads of the last three colonies
to consult not only the colonial office, but also the governor-general, that is to
say, the governor of New South Wales, he reduced the position of those three to
that of a vice-governor. The independent spirit and the mutual jealousy of the
•colonies augured no permanence to such an arrangement. The Victorians showed
their contempt for the dignity of the governor-general by voting their own governor
a salary of <£7,000, or £2,000 more than was received by his superior. In 1855 a
governor was at the head of every colony, and although at Sydney the governor up
to 1861 bore the additional title of governor-general, it did not carry with it any
real power.
With the act of August 5, 1850, the chief step toward the alteration of the
•constitution of the Australian colonies was taken ; but it did not signify any final
settlement. It is true that the receipts from the customs were guaranteed to the
colonies, but they were still collected by officials nominated from England. Again,
the profits from the sale of the crown lands were not entirely at the disposal of
the Australians, since half was applied by the mother country to the encouragement
of emigration. Finally, the nomination of the higher officials rested completely with
the home government. A general agitation against the retention of these powers was
raised directly after the introduction of the new constitution. Absolute self-govern-
ment, without any restrictions, was demanded, and the English government did not
•delay to concede this clamorous demand. The moving cause of this concession was
by no means mere philanthropy, but in the first place the fear of entirely alienating
the mass of the Australian population by a refusal of these proposals. From the
Tery first this population had been undisciplined and deterred by nothing ; and now,
.since in consequence of the discoveries of gold, the stream of morally undesirable
immigrants had been enormously swollen, it had developed more unpleasant
•characteristics, of which the disputes in the camps with the authorities gave daily
fresh proof. Another reason was that the Crimean War had complicated the
European situation and left the mother country little time for the discussion
of colonial affairs. The result was that in April, 1851, the entire management of
the customs was put into the hands of the colonies ; in the following year the
application of the proceeds of the diggers' licenses was entrusted to them, and at
the same time it was left to their discretion to bring before the English government
their further wishes as to the completion of the constitution. At the end of 1854,
the colonies submitted their propositions to the government. Those of South
Australia and Tasmania received the royal assent at once, while those of Victoria
and New South Wales were reserved to be confirmed by act of parliament, on the
ground that they involved concessions which the crown by itself was powerless to
make. The confirmation of parliament was granted, after some slight amendments
had been made, in the year 1855.
The contents of the new constitutions may be briefly recapitulated as follows.
The most essential innovation, which is common to all four colonies, is the transition
from the single-chamber system to the dual-chamber system. By the side of the
288 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
former legislative council, which is henceforth the first chamber or upper house,
comes in each case an assembly, or lower house. In New South Wales the former
consisted of twenty-one members nominated by the crown for life, while the lower
house, according to the scheme, numbered fifty-four representatives, who were
chosen from the well-to-do classes of electors possessing a certain income. At the
present day the number of members of the upper house is unlimited, while that of
the lower house amounts to one hundred and twenty-five ; these are elected for
three years. The council of Victoria comprised, after the law of 1855, thirty (at
the present day forty -eight) members; the assembly, seventy-five (now ninety-
five) ; both houses are elective in this colony. The members hold office for six
and three years. In South Australia the council nominated by the crown consisted
of twelve ; the assembly, elected by votes, comprised thirty-six members ; but in
1856 voting was introduced for the upper house also, and the number of its mem-
bers was fixed at eighteen. The number in the upper house later was raised to
twenty-four (for twelve years), and in the lower house to fifty-four members
(elected for three years), who were well paid. In 1902, however, from motives of
economy, the number of representatives was lowered to eighteen and forty-two.
In Tasmania, finally, the council has always numbered eighteen, and the assembly
thirty-seven representatives, who are all elected.
In each colony there is a governor, nominated by the crown, but paid by the
colony. The usual term of office is six years, and the salary varies from X 3,500 in
Tasmania, to £ 7,000 in New South Wales. The governor exercises the royal
prerogative of mercy in his colony ; convokes, prorogues, and dissolves the legis-
lature; controls the patronage of the public services, and forms the colonial
cabinet. His position with regard to the legislature and the cabinet is that of a
constitutional sovereign. But his power is also limited by the instructions which
he receives from the colonial office. His assent is necessary to all colonial
legislation ; but a bill which has received his assent, though it is then provisionally
enforced as law, may be disallowed by the colonial office. It would not be possible
to discuss within the limits of our space the question as to the real influence
which the governor exercises in virtue of these legal powers. But one or two of the
recent appointments to Australian governorships have been of a nature to sug-
gest that the home government regards the governor in the light of an ornamen-
tal appendage; and that, if differences of opinion arise between an Australian
colony and the mother country, the governor's part in arranging a settlement will be
insignificant. The telegraph has given a wonderful impetus to centralisation.
The constitutional position of the colonies and their inhabitants toward the
mother country, is peculiar. The parliaments, according to the form proposed by
themselves, are called " Parliaments of the King," in whose name they pass then-
laws binding the Australian subjects of his Britannic Majesty. The colonists in
fact enjoy to the fullest extent all the rights and privileges of a British citizen
without paying one penny to England, which only expresses her suzerainty by the
fact that English law holds good in Australia, so far as it has not been superseded
by local legislation.
The highest executive officials are the ministers, whose number varies from six
in Tasmania to nine in New South Wales. Since they are always chosen from
the parliamentary majorities they change very quickly ; between 1856 and 1876,
in Victoria eighteen, in New South Wales seventeen, in South Australia twenty-
Australia and
Oceania,
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 289
nine different ministers have been at the head of affairs. On the other hand there
is this compensatory advantage, that members of the most varied professions obtain
posts as ministers, and then often display great ability in the administration of
affairs.
(b) The Discoveries of Gold. — The solution of the constitutional question would
certainly not have been so quickly reached, had not all the conditions in Australia
at the beginning of the " fifties " been suddenly and radically altered by the dis-
covery of rich gold fields in various districts. Gold had been already found during
the construction of the road over the Blue Mountains (1814 ; see page 261). The
government had hushed up the discovery from fear that it would be unable to
control the excitement which would assuredly be caused by its publication.
Various rumours of gold mines had cropped up later, but they had not found much
credence. It was only when the opening of the Calif ornian gold mines in 1848
had attracted the attention of the world and had caused a regular migration of
gold diggers to those parts, that serious attention was paid to the precious metal
in Australia. An Australian blacksmith, Hargraves, who had spent some years in
California, carefully examined the mountains near Bathurst, in February, 1851,
and on the 12th of that month he found quantities of alluvial gold in Lewes Pond
Creek. This discovery did not remain a secret as the former had. The whole
continent rang with the news, and by May dense crowds of colonists were flocking
to the place. A few weeks later gold was also found near Ballarat in Victoria ;
then in October also near Mount Alexander, north of Melbourne. A few months
later the veins of gold at Bendigo to the south were also discovered. In Queens-
land, gold was not found until 1858, and in Western Australia not until 1886—
1887.
The effect of these discoveries upon the world was indescribable. In the first
place the whole population of Australia caught the gold fever. Every man who
could work or move, whether labourer, seaman, or clerk, rushed to the gold wash-
ings. The old settlements were so emptied of their inhabitants that Melbourne
for a long time had only one policeman available. South Australia produced the
impression of a country inhabited merely by women and children. The situation
was the same in Tasmania and even in New Zealand. Afterward, when the news
of the discoveries reached America and the Old World, a new wave of immigrants
flooded the country, and the whole overflow of the population streamed to the
gold fields. Under these circumstances the population of Australia rapidly in-
creased. In Victoria, where the influx was the greatest, the population had num-
bered 70,000 souls in July, 1851 ; nine months later that number was living on the
gold fields alone, and in 1861 the whole population of the colony amounted to
541,800 souls. New South Wales then reckoned 358,200 inhabitants; South
Australia 126,800 ; Tasmania 90,200; Queensland had 34,800, and Western Aus-
tralia 15,600. This rise in the figures of the population was encouraging to the
economic development of the colonies, but it put the government which was sud-
denly confronted with these occurrences in a very difficult position. The exodus
of civil servants from their recently created posts was so universal that the
administration threatened to come to a standstill. Salaries were doubled, but to
no purpose; the attraction of the gold fields was too potent. The governor of
Victoria found himself finally compelled to apply to England for a regiment of
VOL. 11 — 19
290 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
soldiers, who could not run away without being liable to a court-martial. The
government offices were at the same time rilled by two hundred pensioned prison
warders, brought over from England. The government was soon faced by another
class of difficulties arising from its legal position toward the new branch of indus-
try. According to the view of the legal advisers of the government all mines of
precious metals, whether on crown land or private property, belonged to the crown.
They advised the governors, therefore, to prohibit gold mining absolutely, in order
not to disturb the peaceful development of the colonies. Under the prevailing
conditions this counsel was as superfluous as it was foolish, since the means at the
disposal of the authorities were absolutely insufficient to enforce it. Sir Charles
Fitzroy, the governor of New South Wales, contented himself with issuing a pro-
clamation, as soon as the first find of gold was publicly announced, which only
permitted gold mining on crown land on payment of a fixed prospecting tax of
thirty shillings a month ; and on the discovery of rock gold claimed for the gov-
ernment ten per cent of the proceeds of working the quartz.
This order naturally met with little response from the gold diggers, however
much in other respects it was calculated to aid the development of the colony by
increasing the public resources. It is true that they agreed to it in New South
Wales, where the political situation had not been so violently disturbed, but not
so in Victoria, where the governor had also adopted the enactment of Sydney.
For one thing, the government was not so firmly established there as in the mother
colony ; and Victoria had also received a very high percentage of the roughest and
most lawless people as new members of the population. Not every one of them
was so fortunate as to find gold ; they could not pay the high fee, and began to agi-
tate, first, against the amount of the impost, secondly, against the institution itself.
The ill-feeling was soon universal, not only in the gold fields, but also in the old
settlements and towns. The prevalent idea was that the application of the large
sums derived from the licenses and imposts merely to the payment of the costs of
the administration did not meet the interests of the population, and that the sys-
tem should be changed. A reduction of the tax did not satisfy anybody ; on the
contrary, disturbances in the camps became more and more frequent. A murder
had been committed in October, 1854, in Eureka camp near Ballarat. The feeble
police force made some blunders in following up the case, and consequently dis-
turbances broke out among the gold diggers, which were soon aimed at the hated
prospecting license ; and finally, when the governor had sent all the troops at hi&
disposal into the riotous district, a regular battle was fought on December 3d
between thirty gold diggers and a body of soldiers. Out of the one hundred and
twenty rioters who were captured, the ringleaders were sent to Melbourne to be
tried, but there was no court to be found which, in spite of the overwhelming evi-
dence of guilt, would pronounce a verdict against them.
The tax question was only settled in 1855. A gold digger's license, costing
one pound for the year, was substituted for the monthly prospecting tax, which was
abolished. In order to cover the loss of revenue to the colonial exchequer, an
export duty of half a crown on every ounce of gold was imposed. This wise meas-
ure laid the imposts primarily on the successful gold digger, a policy which secured
a good reception for the law and satisfied all parties. Before the end of the year
the governor of Victoria was able to report to London that quiet prevailed in every
camp.
%££""] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 291
(c) The Development of Australia to the Present Time. — (a) The Economic
Groivth. — The discovery of the astonishing wealth in Australia in gold did not
indeed cause complete self-government to be given to the colonies, but it immensely
quickened the course of proceedings. The general situation was so changed with
the commencement of working the mines that the fullest measure of independence
was a vital question for the local governments. The act of 1855 testifies to the
political discernment of the English government. The interval between 1850
and 1855 was a period of transition. The large administrative organism created
in 1850 had to become acquainted with its work, a process which the phenomena
attendant on the gold fever rendered far from easy. The population, the body of
old settlers as much as the mass of recently arrived and arriving newcomers, was
faced by new problems ; the old centres of population were deserted, while towns
sprang up like mushrooms on the gold fields. This shifted in the first place the
economic centre of gravity of the colonies, and, after the franchise had been given
to the alien gold diggers in 1855, the political centre of gravity was equally
affected.
The old land question now once more became prominent. With all the
wealth of Australia in gold (the average yearly output from 1851 to 1901
amounted to £9,000,000 sterling) it was inevitable that among hundreds of thou-
sands of gold diggers thousands should be unsuccessful. Few matters caused the
authorities of those days more anxiety than the task of making satisfactory pro-
vision for the crowds of the unemployed. Macquarie had formerly considered
that increased facilities of communication were the necessary preliminary to all
economic development, and the new colonial governments acted in the same spirit.
In 1855 the railroad from Sydney to Paramatta was opened, and extensive roads
and lines of telegraph were soon constructed. Jenks points with pride to the fact
that England, between the years 1788 and 1821, gave the sum of £10,000,000 to
advance economic interests of New South Wales and Tasmania. That is a large
sum, well calculated to keep alive in the Australian of to-day the feeling of
attachment to the mother country. But what is it in comparison with the
£100,000,000, which Australia spent on similar purposes in the shorter period
from 1855 to 1880 ! Those ten millions had come from the pockets of the English
taxpayers; these hundred millions could not have been provided by the Aus-
tralians. As a matter of fact, they were mostly obtained by government loans,
which were raised in London. They have, on the one hand, formed the founda-
tion for the enormous amount of the public debt in the Australian colonies
(£187,000,000 in the year 1900, or £50 sterling per head of a population of
3,750,000 persons) ; on the other hand, the unfailing willingness of the Eng-
lish money market to place its ample resources at the service of the Australian
colonies has largely contributed to strengthen the feeling of kinship. The exten-
sive grant of electoral powers by the constitution of 1855 soon set the land
question rolling. The suffrage especially benefited the small settlers, whose
numbers, always larger than those of the great landowners or squatters, had been
enormously swelled by the new influx. Adroitly availing themselves of this
welcome increase of power, they proceeded to revive the old antagonism between
the interests of the stock breeders and the agriculturists, in order to obtain a
decision in their favour. The result in New South Wales in 1861 was a land
law which regulated the division of crown lands according to a new point of
292 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter III
view; other colonies followed this example. The small settlers were benefited
everywhere, while the privileges of the large estates were curtailed ; the former,
for example, received in New South Wales the right to select for themselves
homesteads and farms of a definite small size on the still unsurveyed pasture
grounds. The economic struggle, which was waged so vigorously by both parties
half a century ago, under the effect of the new stimulus given by the discovery of
gold, has continued to the present day, with less violence, perhaps, but with more
obstinacy; and the large landed proprietors are still the object of attack. It is
true, they offer a bold resistance, but the small farmer (" selector " or " cockatoo
farmer " ) during the last few decades, has steadily secured new advantages, which
are not always confined to a change in the letter of the law. Since 1890 the
tendency to encourage the small man is so great that, for the purpose of acquiring
land, advances are made to him at a low rate of interest which are refused to
others.
The advance in the population of Australia in the last half century is of great
interest. We have already called attention (p. 289) to the enormous growth
directly produced by the discovery of gold in the southeastern colonies, when we
gave the number of the inhabitants in 1861. The rate of increase in the follow-
ing years is, as might be expected, not so rapid ; but, apart from the last twenty
years, it has attained a height which, in view of the great American competition,
is quite astounding, In 1861 the mainland and Tasmania contained between
them 1,167,695 white inhabitants; on January 1, 1900, the number had increased
to 3,756,894 ; in barely four decades, therefore, it has been more than tripled. The
chief share in this increase is due to the immigration, which has been particularly
large from Great Britain. Between 1853 and 1890, 1,374,422 persons emigrated
from the British Isles, half of whom were assisted by money grants from the
respective colonies. This emigration has naturally diminished in consequence of
the great industrial depression at the beginning of the " nineties." In fact, in
Victoria and South Australia the tendency has been toward emigration, so that
the increase of the population there is only due to the excess of births over deaths.
This excess of births is lessening from year to year ; partly because of the bad
times for trades and industries, which disastrously affect the number of marriages,
but partly also from a cause involving more serious issues for the future of the
continent, which makes the Australian statesmen regard this future with serious
apprehension. This is the physical and mental degeneration of the white race
on the soil of Australia (p. 243). Its causes are looked for in the pernicious
effects of the climate and of the purely English diet, consisting of animal food,
which is unsuitable to a hot country. However this may be, the original physique
of the settler has altered for the worse ; even the national morality has become
less strict. Divorces are common occurrences, and the size of families is much
reduced.
Immigration received a severe setback in 1890, when most of the colonies dis-
continued the practice of aiding any British subjects desirous of emigrating. This
measure reflects the internal political condition of the colonies, in so far as it
clearly shows the great influence of the labour party, which turned the scale almost
everywhere. It had, as may well be imagined, a strong interest in keeping up
high wages, and strained every nerve to check immigration. With this object it
also considerably restricted or entirely stopped the immigration of coloured set-
A ustralia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
tiers. The International Congress of Workmen held at Brisbane, in May, 1899,
and attended by delegates from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South
Australia, actually resolved on the exclusion of all foreigners from Australia.
The continent was once plunged into great danger by this unduly pronounced
confidence of its labour party. Toward the end of the "eighties " the old antago-
nism between the small farmer and the large landed proprietor, between work and
capital, became so acute that it only needed a trifling pretext to make the former
light skirmishing blaze into a serious battle. The battle itself was only a trial of
strength. The conditions of existence in Australia have always been better than
in any other civilized country, both as regards the height of wages, the cheapness of
food and land, and the length of the working hours. The workmen then wished
for a greater share in the regulation of labour ; when the employers opposed this
claim with all their power, the struggle broke out in 1890. The pretext for the
opening of the campaign was the refusal of a shipowner to reinstate a discharged
workman. This led immediately to a strike on the part of the dock labourers ; and
other trades followed suit. The plan of the leaders of the agitation was to cripple
all the industries of the entire continent by a general strike ; an imposing idea,
but it proved impracticable. Most of the workmen had been well organised pre-
viously, but the employers soon put themselves in an equally favourable position
by combining into large bodies ; in addition to this, the non-organised workmen
were not under any compulsion to strike. After many isolated strikes capital was
victorious along the whole line.
Partly as a result of the industrial fluctuations, partly in consequence of a move-
ment which seems characteristic of agricultural and pastoral colonies, an acute
financial crisis spread over the whole continent in the year 1893. Just as, half a
century before, in New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria, foolish specu-
lation in estates and land had brought the young colonies to the verge of ruin
(p. 264), so now a correspondingly exaggerated and abnormal industrial develop-
ment and a wild speculation in land and shares brought the whole continent into a
dangerous position. Even the most securely founded undertakings began to totter.
At the present day, although only a short interval has elapsed, there are few traces
visible of this crisis in the antipodes. Australia resembles the United States of
America, in so far as it possesses an enormous wealth of natural resources in pro-
portion to its population. An efficient remedy for industrial depression is supplied
not only by the gold and the other valuable minerals, but also by the fertility of
much of its soil and the admirable climate ; the startling rapidity with which its
exports of meat and fruit have doubled and redoubled is the best proof of this.
The main industries of Australia have always been stock breeding, mining, and
agriculture; manufactures are in comparison unimportant. The growth of stock
breeding is irregular, but encouraging on the whole. In spite of the greatly dimin-
ished number of cattle and sheep in New South Wales and Queensland, owing to
the long-continued droughts of the last few years, Australia and Tasmania contain
nearly 100,000,000 head of stock (cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs). The export of
wool amounts to more than a million bales, and the export of preserved meat, butter,
and cheese brings many million pounds annually into the country.
The improvement in agriculture is less marked. The greatest hindrances to
this are the extreme dryness of climate, which has already been often mentioned,
and then the periodical recurrence of extraordinary droughts. Of the 1,900,000,000
294 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter m
acres which Australia and Tasmania contain, about 112,000,000 at the present day
have been sold and 700,000,000 rented, while approximately 1,100,000,000 acres are
as yet unused, or will remain permanently useless. It is a striking proof of the
proportionate size of the various industries that of these 812,000,000 acres of
serviceable land barely 7,500,000 are available for agriculture ; all the rest of that
vast amount is at present only good for stock rearing. This immense disproportion
has often caused anxiety to the Australians, and it is not without good reason that
facilities have been given to the poorer classes to acquire land anywhere. In view
of the recurring droughts and what is technically termed the extensive system of
cultivation, successful efforts have been made to regulate the water supply by
artesian wells, irrigation canals, and dams. The adoption of rational methods of
field farming and rotation of crops is more and more felt to be as much a necessity
for Australia as for North America. The same remark applies generally to the
long-neglected science, forestry.
The most important industry next to stock breeding is mining, notwithstanding
that it has now been carried on for fifty years, and that the system of working has
been careless. It is true that, in the old gold-mining centres of Victoria, New
South Wales, and Queensland, the easy process of gold washing has long been
impossible ; on the contrary, the auriferous ore must be brought up from a great
depth. But these colonies are still productive, although since 1899 they have been
nearly overtaken by Western Australia. The output of gold from the latter colony
amounted in that year to £6,250,000 sterling, while that of the other three together
was £8,250,000. The total yield of gold from Australia and Tasmania reached in
round figures £15,000,000 sterling. The growth in the output of other minerals is
less striking, but of an importance for the prosperity of the colonies which must not
be underestimated. Copper, in consequence of the increased demand due to the spread
of electrotechnics, has been mined on a steadily growing scale; and the same
remark applies to silver and tin. The wealth of Australia in coal has proved an
important factor in the development of the railway system, as also of the mines
and manufactures, which latter are still in their infancy. The coal not only
supplies the home demand, but is already exported to South and West Asia and to
America. The iron industry alone in Australia has not yet shown a corresponding
progress, notwithstanding the enormous extent of the deposits of iron ore, which
might profitably be worked.
(/9) Educational Progress. — In the second stage of their development the
Australian colonies followed the policy of raising money on loans with such con-
sistency and success that few countries have now a larger debt in proportion to
their population. This has been of great benefit to the culture of the people. The
large sums which flowed into the country from these loans placed the government
in a position to do more than meet material requirements and to attend to the
spiritual and intellectual welfare of their subjects.
The numerous religious sects receive no assistance from the government, but
each provides for the needs of its own members. On the other hand, the organisa-
tion and improvement of primary education has long filled a large space in the
programmes of the governments. Before 1880 there were two classes of schools.
The "national schools" were immediately subject to State control; there were
also voluntary schools (these were particularly numerous in New South Wales),
A iittrnlia anil
"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 295
which were conducted by four denominations, the Church of England, the Presby-
terians, the Wesleyans, and the Roman Catholics, but received support from
the State. In 1880 the schools became undenominational and, in their elementary
branches, compulsory. The school fees were at first only remitted to poor persons,
but later they were abolished altogether (in Victoria this reform had been passed
in 1872).
The organisation of higher education has moved more slowly ; the present state
of affairs is, however, satisfactory. There are a large number of grammar schools,
collegiate schools, and colleges which, like the voluntary schools of the past, are
in the hands of private individuals or religious societies. Of late years the State
has founded similar institutions. There are at present three Australian universi-
ties, at Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. In Tasmania one was founded at
Hobart in 1892, but for the time being it is merely an examining body. The
degrees granted by the universities are recognised as equal to those obtained in
English universities, and are open to women. Lastly, the learned societies in the
capitals, which in organisation and titles are closely modelled on corresponding
English bodies, are connected with the universities, and promote the exploration of
the country and scientific studies generally.
The press shows a less encouraging development. The number of its organs is
considerable, — they amount to a thousand, if periodicals are included, — but on the
whole they do not stand high. External questions are treated superficially, with-
out any grasp of the economic and political situation ; home affairs on the contrary
are discussed in great detail.
(7) The Military Position. — The Australian colonies have on the whole
always maintained good relations with the mother country (cf. p. 243). Even in
the antipodes there is a complete feeling of sympathy and union between the
settler and his kinsfolk in England. Nevertheless there have been occasional
disputes, quarrels, and misunderstandings. Victoria, for example, keenly resented
the interference of England in the home affairs of the colony in 1869, consequent
on an appeal of the Royal Colonial Institute to all the colonies to attend a
conference for the purpose of putting the relations between the mother country and
the colonies on a satisfactory footing. The language of Victoria was then very
confident and menacing ; yet it did not prevent the rich colony from continuing to
enjoy the protection of the troops paid for by the mother country, although, as
long before as 1862, the English parliament had advised that all colonies should,
on receiving self-government, be left to defend their own hearths and homes. It
was not until 1870 that England withdrew her troops, not only from Victoria, but
from the whole of Australia, which now first realised how helplessly it lay exposed
to an attack from outside, and how expensive it would be to provide its own
system of defence.
The formation of a colonial army and navy, in the first place doubtless from
financial reasons, was slow in coming. It began, and this is a point worth noticing,
at the moment when the internal political development of the older colonies ended,
and when the first attempt was made to expand beyond the borders of the con-
tinent. In addition to the French, who are still as feared as they were a century
ago, the Germans by their efforts at colonisation have caused considerable anxiety
to the Australians, and have awakened the feeling of the necessity for military
296 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
preparations. At the present day every colony has its own small standing army,
and some thousands of militia and volunteers. This force has not yet had any op-
portunity of active service in its own country or in the Pacific. On the other
hand New South Wales in 1885 sent six hundred men to help the mother country
in the Sudan War (Vol. Ill, p. 561), and several thousand men of the Australian
militia took part in the Boer War in 1900. These local levies, insignificant in
number and deficient in military discipline, could not cope with a vigorous attack
from a foreign enemy. Australia, in this respect finds herself in the same position
as the United States of America, which latter, however, have the protection of a
strong navy available. The great continent in the Pacific, poorer in money and
men, has not yet obtained a fleet of effective fighting power. It is true that each
of the separate colonies possesses one or two warships ; but these, from want of
any combination in numbers or tactics, produce the impression of a military play-
thing rather than of a fighting implement of serious value, and are insufficient to
defend the vast extent of coast line. Conscious of this defect, though ultimately
at the suggestion of England, Australia made an agreement in 1887 with the
mother country, in virtue of which the latter formed for the colonies the " Austra-
lian Auxiliary Squadron." This fleet, which consists of five twin-screw cruisers
and two gunboats, is supplied, manned, and commanded by England, but kept up
by the colonies. They pay for it XI 26,000 annually, besides five per cent interest
on the cost of the floating material. The agreement came into force in 1891, when
the squadron appeared in the Pacific, Sydney being its headquarters. At the same
time England maintains a special squadron in Australian waters, the cost of which,
as Moritz Schanz remarks, constitutes the only expense which Australia imposes
upon the British exchequer.
In order to strengthen the defence of the coast, but also to complete the line of
British naval and military outposts round the world, a number of the Australian
seaports have been fortified or made into naval harbours ; thus, Brisbane, Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston, and Hobart.
(8) Tlie Completion of the Internal Development and the first Oversea Expansion.
— The grant of full self-government to the Australian colonies in the middle of the
nineteenth century, and the separation of Victoria as an independent colony from
New South Wales, did not complete the organisation and the external enlargement
of this colonial system. Since gold had been found in large quantities in the
district of Moreton Bay in 1858, at the petition of the inhabitants this also was
separated from New South Wales and, under the name of Queensland, was provided
with the same self-government as the elder sister colonies. The legislative
council contains forty-one members nominated by the crown, the assembly
seventy-two members elected for three years. Seven ministers are associated with
the governor, who is nominated by the crown.
The growth of Queensland has been as steady as that of most of the other
colonies. The year 1866 brought drought and great mortality among the cattle,
involving the ruin of many businesses and private individuals ; the financial crisis
also, at the beginning of the " nineties," struck the colony with great force. But
in spite of these blows the population has grown comparatively rapidly and pros-
perity has increased. The number of inhabitants, which in 1861 hardly amounted
to 35,000, had reached 147,000 in 1873 ; on January 1, 1900, it amounted to
£££"*"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 297
512,604 souls. This growth, which is principally due to large immigration, has
been much helped by the policy adopted since 1871 of subsidising the immigrants.
The rich gold fields, of which some twenty-five are being worked at the present
day, attracted large multitudes. The immense size of Queensland, stretching
through eighteen degrees of latitude, and the consequent variety of industries (in
the sparsely peopled north all the tropical products are grown, while in the
densely inhabited south the crops of the temperate zone are cultivated) led some
years ago to the idea of its division into two provinces with separate governments,
but a common central administration. The twenty-first degree of southern lati-
tude was suggested as the boundary line.
Western Australia was the last of the Australian colonies to receive self-
government. The system of transportation was in force there until the year 1868.
Its discontinuance did not alter the relations to the mother country. The year
1870 saw the introduction of a legislative council composed of members partly
nominated, partly elected ; but it was not until October 21, 1890, that the previous
crown colony joined the ranks of the other colonies on equal terms. Its council
contains twenty-four members, the assembly forty-four, all of whom are elected.
The development of Western Australia has only quite lately been more rapid,
since large gold fields of great extent were discovered in 1887. The population,
numbering in 1881 barely thirty thousand souls, has increased, almost entirely
through immigration, to nearly two hundred thousand. The internal development
of the colonies was early accompanied by the effort to spread the power of Aus-
tralia beyond the limits of the continent. This was noticeable as far back as 1869
in the opening of the Fiji question (vide p. 310) ; but no real oversea expansion
took place before 1883. Notwithstanding the position of New Guinea in the
immediate vicinity of Australia, neither the colonies nor England itself had ever
showed any inclination to acquire territory there. It was only about the middle
of the " seventies," when rumours of Germany's intentions on the immense island
were rife, that the Australians remembered its proximity, and New South Wales
suggested offhand the incorporation of that part of New Guinea which was not
subject to Dutch suzerainty. England assented, on the stipulation that the Aus-
tralians bore the cost of administration ; that they refused. The question, however,
was still discussed in Australia, and when the Germans really threatened to take
steps, the premier of Queensland, on his own responsibility, declared that he had
taken possession of the eastern portion of the island in March, 1883. England
then shrunk from placing the destiny of so large a territory in the hands of the
small population of Queensland, although the Australian Colonial Conference in
December was in favour of the acquisition. Meanwhile Germany actually took
possession of the north of the island, and England was obliged to content herself,
on November 6, 1884, with the southeast alone. At the present day British New
Guinea is an English crown colony, and Queensland, New South Wales, and
Victoria contribute a fixed sum yearly toward the cost of administration ; its ad-
ministrator communicates with the English colonial office through the agency of
the governor of Queensland.
Eegarded from the Australian standpoint, this first step toward an international
policy marks a failure. The colonies have always felt it to be so ; to the present
day the tone of their press is, on the whole, anti-German. They have not attempted
any further practical realisation of their colonising dreams. British New Guinea
298 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
may be considered an appanage of Queensland ; far distant Pitcairn, Lord Howe
Island, and, since 1896, Norfolk Island stand in the same relation to New South
Wales ; that is the entire transmarine territory. All the more strongly during the
last two decades have signs been shown of an effort to influence in favour of Aus-
tralia that part of the British foreign policy which touches the very extended sphere
of Australian interests ; thus in the Samoa question (p. 324). England could not
meet the wishes of Germany and the United States of America, simply because
Australian interests would presumably be prejudiced by so doing. The cry for a
" greater Australia " is already ringing in men's ears.
(e) The Steps toward Federation. — The idea of a political union of all the
Australian colonies is as old as the efforts for expansion. As far back as the begin-
ning of the " fifties " a universal Australian parliament was proposed in order to
settle the question of tariffs ; the house of lords, however, rejected the bill. There
was, besides, in Australia itself, both then and later, little feeling hi favour of such
federation. It was only in 1871, after the establishment of a :ollverein in Canada,
that the idea of such a union found strong support in Australia. There was, how-
ever, a difficulty in the way. The most practical step toward tariff federation
would be that individual colonies should come to agreements for reciprocal reduc-
tion of the duties on goods imported from one to the other. The colonial office
has always upheld the principle that one part of the empire should not be allowed
to differentiate between the rest in its tariff regulations. It was, therefore, inti-
mated that no partial customs union would be sanctioned by the mother country ;
but that a scheme for a customs union of all the colonies would be favourably con-
sidered. This was an intelligible point of view ; but it may be criticised as showing
a want of faith in the future.
At length, in 1873, under the first ministry of W. E. Gladstone, the colonies
obtained their point, that the prohibition against differentiated tariffs should be re-
moved. From that date the several colonies were free to give each other specially
favourable tariffs, or to isolate themselves. Uniformity of tariffs was obligatory
when dealing with England or foreign States. This measure was hardly more than
a step toward the desired goal. Greater unanimity among the individual colonies
was necessary before that goal could be reached. It was not until 1884, after the
encroachment of Germany upon the Australian sphere of interests, that a further
step was taken. This time it was decided to form a " federal council," which
should discuss the common interests of Australia, without interfering in the affairs
of the several colonies. But although the majority of the colonies were represented,
and the council actually held some sittings, no results ensued.
At the instance of Sir Henry Parkes, the prime minister of New South Wales,
a conference met in 1890 and 1891, first in Melbourne, then in Sydney, at which the
five Australian colonies, Tasmania, and New Zealand, were represented by their
premiers. After long discussions, a " bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Aus-
tralia " was finally drafted ; and after the colonial representatives had met for sev-
eral successive years, it was adopted, though not without considerable alterations, by
six out of the seven colonies, received the royal assent on July 9, 1900, and came into
force on January 1, 1901. The name of the new federation is the " Commonwealth
of Australia." It comprises at present all the Australian colonies and Tasmania ;
New Zealand has not yet joined it. According to the constitution promulgated on
&2"'1"''] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 299
September 17, 1900, the legislative power rests with a government which consists
of a governor-general, representing the crown, a senate, and a house of representa-
tives. The senate consists of six members for each State ; the house of represen-
tatives contains at present one member to every fifty thousand inhabitants, with a
minimum of five members for each State, so that according to the last census New
South Wales has twenty-six seats, Victoria twenty-three, Queensland nine, South
Australia seven, Tasmania and Western Australia, five seats each. The senate is
elected for six years, the house of representatives for three years ; but the latter
may be at any time dissolved by the governor-general. The legislative powers of the
federal government extend to customs duties and excise, public expenditure, trade
and quarantine, military and naval defence, beside the settlement of disputes between
masters and workmen. There is one power which calls for special notice ; it is that of
settling the relations between the commonwealth and the islands of the Pacific. The
Pacific question is the one question of foreign policy by which the Australian col-
onists feel that their interests are immediately touched. They are likely, therefore,
to put a high value on this power, while at the same time the crown is amply pro-
tected against its abuse. For every law passed by the commonwealth requires the
assent of the crown, and can be rejected, within a year of its acceptance by the
Australian parliament, by the governor-general as representing the crown. The
highest court of justice is the high court of Australia ; appeals from this can be
made to a court of appeal attached to the privy council, in which Canada, South
Africa, and India, are each represented by one judge. The Earl of Hopetoun was
appointed first governor-general, but he resigned his office in May, 1902.
Since the new federal government has come into force, Australia has entered
on a completely new stage of its chequered development. The founding of the
commonwealth is undoubtedly the most important step in the history of the con-
tinent. Even the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, who do not see any danger to
the integrity of the empire in the federation of the colonies, cannot deny that the
foreign policy of the commonwealth will henceforth strike out wider and distinctly
more independent paths. The great importance of the Pacific Ocean for the history
of mankind, especially in the future, is beyond question (cf. Vol. I, p. 598). Aus-
tralia is faced by a historical future ; if it even only half realises the part it has to
play, it will take a more energetic part in the Pacific than it has taken during the
last decades. The first indication of this new departure may be found in the pro-
posal made by the premiers, that the federal government should undertake the
administration of British New Guinea. For a long time certainly, the policy of
Greater Australia will be a British policy ; yet it is a question whether the change
of geographical and economic conditions, such as will be effected by the completion
of the Central American canal, will not be strong enough to shake the ancient
loyalty, and to show to the policy of the new commonwealth paths which lie far
from the old direction and away from the interests of the mother country.
6. OCEANIA AS PAET OF THE INHABITED WOELD
A. THE POSITION, SIZE, AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE ISLANDS
FROM a geographical point of view Oceania is a unique feature of the surface
of the globe. In the first place it is of enormous size. From the Pelew Islands
300 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter in
in the west to Easter Island, or Sala y Gomez, in the east it stretches over 120
degrees of longitude, that is to say, over fully a third of the circumference of
the earth, and from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south it covers
80 degrees of latitude ; it resembles, therefore, in this respect the giant continent
of Asia, while with its entire area of 27,000,000 square miles it is nearly half as
large again.
The distribution of the " world of islands " within this enormous space is most
uneven. Speaking generally, the islands are less densely clustered and smaller in
size as one goes from west to east. Melanesia indeed does not include many large
islands, but it includes New Guinea, a country which is not only twice as large as
all the other .islands of Oceania put together (320,,000 square miles to 177,000
square miles), but represents the largest insular formation on the globe. The
Bismarck archipelago and the Solomon group contain islands which in size
far exceed all the Micronesian and most of the Polynesian islands ; New Cale-
donia alone is in area twice as large as all the Polynesian islands put together,
if Hawaii is omitted (7,000 square miles to 4,000 square miles). New Zealand,
finally, which in its formation cannot be separated from the island belt of Melane-
sia, has almost exactly ten times the area of the whole Polynesian realm of islands
including Hawaii (106,000 square miles to 11,000 square miles). Melanesia, as
a glance at the map will show, forms the inner of the two great belts of island
groups, which curve in a thin line round the continent of Australia, while the
outer belt contains all Micronesia and West Polynesia. But between the island
clusters of Melanesia, in spite of their considerable area and their dense grouping
on a narrow periphery, stretch broad expanses of sea. How thinly scattered, then,
must be the islets of Micronesia and Polynesia with their insignificant area, over
the vast waters of the ocean !
This isolation is the main feature in their distribution. Our maps of the
Pacific are always on a very small scale and cannot bring out this peculiarity. The
Caroline Islands, to give an instance, do not indeed appear on them as a dense
cluster, but still show clearly how close their interconnection is. Including the
Pelews they comprise forty-nine islands and atolls, whose total area is six hun-
dred square miles ; or, to give an English parallel, almost precisely the area of
Monmouthshire. This is certainly not much in itself, and how infinitely small
it appears when distributed over the expanse of sea which is framed by the
archipelago. Stretching over thirty-two degrees of longitude and nine degrees of
latitude it almost precisely covers the same area as the Mediterranean, namely one
hundred thousand square miles. "We are therefore dealing with magnitudes which
practically allow of no comparison, and all the more so, since of those six hundred
square miles five islands, which, it may be remarked, are the only ones of non-
coralline formation, contain more than two-thirds. The small remainder is distrib-
uted over forty-four atolls, hardly rising above the level of the sea, which with
their average size of one square mile literally disappear in that vast waste of waters.
The case is the same with the majority of the Microuesian and Polynesian archi-
pelagoes. Even if the distribution is not so thin as that of the Caroline Islands,
still the insignificance of the land surface in comparison with the sea is shown by
the fact that the Spaniards in the sixteenth century cruised for tens of years
up and down the south seas without sighting more than a few islands, and
those only which formed part of the densest clusters.
o^«aan"J HISTORY OF THE WORLD 301
This distribution of its homes over so vast a region has been of the greatest
importance for the population of Oceania. In the first place, it could only reach
its ultimate home by navigation; and, besides that, it was impossible to form
and maintain any relations with neighbours by any other means of communi-
cation. One result of this was that the natives in general had attained a high
degree of skill in seamanship at the time of the arrival of the Europeans;
another that they showed a marvellous disregard of distances and a mobility
most unusual among primitive races. Not one among all the peoples of the
earth can compare with the Oceanians in all these respects. The clumsy
Melanesians, it is true, remain in the background ; but where can we find ships
to compare in grace and seaworthiness with those of Polynesia or Micronesia ?
or voyages so extended as those of the Pacific races ? and what primitive people
can point to colonisation so wide and so effective as the Polynesian? And
it must be borne in mind that all these astounding performances were executed
by races who knew nothing of iron until quite recent times, and were restricted to
stone, wood, and shells.
B. THE CONFIGURATION OF THE ISLANDS
THE configuration of the islands in the South Sea has exercised as great
an influence on the racial life as the geographical distribution and the size.
According to the degree of their visibility from the open sea the realm of islands
is divided into high (mainly volcanic) and low (or coral) islands. There is
no sharp local differentiation of the two groups within the vast region. Some
archipelagoes indeed, such as the Tuamotu, Gilbert, and Marshall islands, are
purely coral constructions; others again, like all the remaining groups of East
and West Polynesia, are high islands. But, generally speaking, the fact remains
that coralline formations, whether fringing reefs or barrier reefs, are the constant
feature of the high islands. This is also the case with the five high islands of the
Carolines.
This peculiar arrangement, as well as the configuration of the islands, has in
various points greatly influenced the Oceanians and their historical evolution.
In the first place the labour of the coral insects always increases the size of
the land. This is most clearly seen in the atolls; the reef-building capacity
of those insects has produced the whole extent of those dwelling places for man.
The activity of the corals, though less in itself, is more varied in its effect in the
case of the high islands surrounded by reefs. First, the beach is widened and thus
the entire economic position of the islanders is improved. The fertile delta of the
Eewa on Vita Levu, as well as the strips of shore from half a mile to two miles
broad which border the Tahiti islands, lie on old reefs. These themselves are,
wherever they occur, the best fishing grounds; besides this, they always form
excellent harbours and channels, — a most important point for seafarers like the
Oceanians. The seamanship and bold navigation of this racial group has thus been
markedly affected by the activity of diminutive molluscs.
The great poverty of the islands as a whole has been an important factor in
their history. From a distance they appear like earthly Paradises, but on landing
the traveller finds that even the most picturesque of them offers little to man.
Barely one per cent of the surface of the coral islands is productive; in the
302 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter in
majority of the larger volcanic islands, the fertile soil does not amount to more
than a quarter, or according to some authorities not more than an eighth, of the
entire surface. There is also often an entire lack of fresh water. Under such
circumstances the possibility of settlement is confined within narrow limits ; if the
population exceeds a definite figure, there is imminent risk of death from starva-
tion or thirst. The South Sea Islanders are therefore, in the first place, prone to
wander ; in the second place they adopt the cruel custom of infanticide, in order to
check the growth of the population.
A third result of the poverty of the islands, and one which is important for the
geographical aspect of the settlements, is the limitation of the habitable region
to the outer edge of the islands. This peculiarity is on the atolls a necessary
consequence of their circular shape ; but it is the rule also among the high islands,
even the largest of them. Even in New Guinea itself, that immense island, with
its enormous superficial development, the coast districts seem to be distinctly more
densely inhabited than the interior. This is the most striking fact about the dis-
tribution of animal and vegetable life in Oceania. The land is poor, the sea, the
only means of communication, is rich in every form of life.
C. THE CLIMATE OF OCEANIA
THE poverty of this world of islands is partly connected with the nature of the
soil and the enormous distances, which most organisms cannot cross, but partly
also with the climate. If we leave out of consideration New Zealand, which
extends into temperate latitudes, Oceania possesses a tropical climate tempered by
the surrounding ocean. The temperatures are not excessive even for Europeans.
But uniformity is their chief feature; the diurnal and annual range is limited
to a few degrees Celsius.
The differences in the rainfall are more marked. Although generally ample,
in places amounting to two hundred and fifty or three hundred inches in the year,
it is almost completely wanting in parts of that vast region, which are so dry that
extensive guano beds can be formed. The contrasts in the rainfall on the several
groups and islands are the more striking, since they are confined to a smaller space.
These are not of course noticeable on the flat coral islands, which scarcely project
a couple of yards above the sea ; but the elevation of the high islands into the
moister strata of the atmosphere presupposes a strong differentiation between
the weather side and the lee side. The side sheltered from the wind escapes the
rain. These two sides do not face the same points of the compass throughout
the whole Pacific Ocean. Its western part, as far as the Solomons, belongs to the
region of the West Pacific monsoon ; the east, however, is the definite region of
the trade-winds. As a result, in the east on the islands of the southern hemi-
sphere the east and south sides, but on those of the northern hemisphere the east
and north sides, are covered with the most luxuriant tropical vegetation, while
on the lee side the true barrenness of ^the soil shows itself. In the west of the
ocean the position of affairs is almost reversed.
The effects of this climate on the development of the culture and history of the
Oceanian are at once seen in the difference of temperament and character between
the wild and energetic, yet politically capable, Maori on far distant New Zealand
with its bracing Alpine air, and his not ungifted, but indolent and politically
Australia inn!'
Ocean in
and~\
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
303
sterile northern kinsmen, who have been unnerved by the unvarying uniformity of
temperature. On the other hand the steadiness of the meteorological conditions
has allowed the Oceanians to develop into the best seamen among primitive races.
Where, as in Oceania, one can be certain of the weather often for months in
advance, it is easier, from inclination or necessity, to venture on an excursion into
the unknown than in regions where the next hour may upset all calculations.
The regularity of the winds and currents of the Pacific Ocean (see the map in
Vol. I, p. 567) has played a great part in the theories that have been formed about
the Polynesian migrations ; in fact most of them are absolutely based upon them.
Thanks to geographical exploration, we now know that this regularity is by no
means so universal as used to be assumed, that on the contrary in these regions
also, the wind veers with the variations of atmospheric pressure and the currents
with the wind. Here also from time to time deviations from the usually prevailing
direction, that is, from the eastern quadrants, are to be noticed. On the other
hand, we are indebted to the spread of ethnographical investigation for the know-
ledge that the seamanship of the Polynesians not only extended to sailing with the
wind, but that an occasional tacking against it was not outside the limit of their
nautical skill. The ocean and its meteorology thus lose some of their value as
sources furnishing an answer to the question of the origin of the Polynesians, in
comparison with anthropological and ethnographical evidence ; but it would be at
any rate premature to disregard them altogether. Even if skilful use of the last-
mentioned methods of inquiry is likely to solve the problem of origin, the other
and almost equally important question of distribution over the whole ocean can
only be answered by giving full weight to geographical considerations.
D. THE FLORA OF OCEANIA
THE main feature of the flora of Oceania is its dependence on the region of the
southeast Asiatic monsoon. This feature is very marked in Melanesia ; but further
toward the east it gradually disappears, while the number of varieties generally
diminishes. Strangely enough, it is this very scantiness that has proved of such
importance for the history of the Oceanian. The Melanesian, surrounded by a
luxuriant wealth of vegetation, dreams away his existence and leaves no history ;
his wants are supplied by the unfailing store of the ocean or the rich forest. We
first find a historical life in the Fiji archipelago, where nature is less prodigal.
The inhabitant of Polynesia and Micronesia has not been so spoilt. Scantily
endowed with fertile soil and edible plants, he is confronted by the wide ocean,
which he has nevertheless learnt to subdue. Although he did not possess a single
tree which could furnish him with seaworthy timber, he became a craftsman,
whose skill compensated for the deficiencies of nature. But by so doing he had in
one direction freed himself from the constraint of nature, and nothing could hinder
him from mastering her in another. Progress in technical skill has always been
the first step toward every other form of progress, including the annihilation of
distance.
Nevertheless, the Polynesians would not have been able to extend their wan-
derings so widely, had not nature, so niggard in everything else, given them further
support in the shape of the cocoanut palm. Its seeds, together with those of a few
other plants, can cross spaces as vast as the distances between the Pacific islands
304 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
without losing .their germinative power; thus these seeds have been the first
condition of the diffusion of the Polynesians over the wide realm of islands. It is
only recently that other food plants have become more important for the nourish-
ment of the islanders than the cocoanuts.
What we have said does not apply to New Zealand. Just as the country
climatically is distinct from the rest of the island world, so its flora bears an
essentially different slamp. It is unusually varied, and the number of species can
be counted by the thousand. Only two plants, however, have proved of value to
the aborigines ; the rarauhe (Pteris csculenta), a fern with an edible root, and the
harakeke or New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax). The value attached to it
by the first Europeans and their consequent efforts to obtain it led to the first
friendly intercourse between the Maoris and the whites.
E. THE FAUNA OF OCEANIA
THE characteristic of the fauna of Oceania is its poverty in mammals and ani-
mals of service to man, in the east even more than in the west. Even the dingo
(p. 239), which the wretched native of Australia could make his somewhat dubious
companion, has not been vouchsafed by nature to the Oceanian. It is only in
quite modern times that the kindness of foreigners has supplied the old deficiency
by the introduction of European domestic animals. New Zealand was once rich
in the species and number of its large fauna. Many varieties of the moa (dinornis),
some of gigantic size (the largest species measured thirteen feet in height), roamed
the vast plains. At the present day it is one of the long extinct classes, having
fallen a victim to the insatiable craving of the Maori for flesh food. It is easy to
understand that the small islands are poor in animal life, for with their scanty
space they could not afford the larger creatures any means of existence. On the
other hand, the poverty of the fauna of New Guinea is more surprising ; notwith-
standing the tropical luxuriance of its soil, its fauna is even more scanty than that
of Australia. The pig alone has proved valuable to the population.
The result of this limited fauna, as reflected in an ethnographically important
phenomenon, has been of much consequence in the historical development of the
races of Polynesia and Micronesia. The races which live principally on islands
of very small size are at the present day either entirely without bows and arrows
as weapons or they retain them merely as a survival. Oskar Peschel traced this
back to the want of opportunity for practice, which is more essential for the bow
than for any other weapon. This opportunity could never have been very frequent,
even if the supply of game had been ample at the time of the emigration of the
hunters. The loss of any weapon which would kill at a distance must naturally
have appreciably altered the tactics of the islanders. It is true that on some
groups of islands fighting at close quarters, which all primitive peoples dread, was
avoided by the adoption of the slingstone or the throwing club in place of the
arrow ; but, as a rule, the transition to hand-to-hand fighting with spear, axe, or
club was inevitable. This always denotes an improvement in tactics, as is shown
by the classic example of the Zulus of South Africa, who, merely from the method
of attack in close order introduced by Tchaka (vide Vol. Ill, p. 437) and the use of
the stabbing spear as the decisive weapon, won the foremost place in the southeast
of the dark continent. In Polynesia the new method of fighting certainly con-
London: It'»> Iltinrmann.
SPECIMENS OF M
(I'.irily frum F. v. I.ustl Volkerkunde", partly lira
shes Institut , Leipzig.
NESIAN CARVING.
L. Siitterlin from the originals in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin.)
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co-
A ustrnlia and
Oceania
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
tributed to that bloodiness of the battles (both among the natives themselves and
against the whites), which distinguishes its history from that of all other primitive
races. The political consequences, from want of any suitable antagonist, could
naturally not be so important here as in South Africa. Nevertheless, the compar-
atively rigid organisation of the majority of the Polynesians is certainly to a large
degree the result of their tactics.
7. THE POPULATION OF OCEANIA
A. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL POSITION OF THE OCEANIANS
ETHNOLOGY separates the population of Oceania into three large groups : the
Melanesians, who inhabit the inner belt of coast from New Guinea to New Cale-
donia and Fiji; the Micronesians, on the Caroline, Marianne, Pelew, Marshall, and
Gilbert islands, and the Polynesians, who inhabit the rest of the great world of
islands, including New Zealand.
The question of the racial position, the connection, and the origin, of these
three groups has occupied scientific inquiry since the early days of their discovery,
and has created a truly enormous literature, although no thoroughly satisfactory
solution has hitherto been found. So far as the Melanesians are concerned, the
question is indeed to be regarded as settled, since no one at the present day feels
any doubt of their connection with the great negroid group of nations (vide Fig. 3
of the accompanying plate, "Melanesian Carvings"). Even on the subject of the
Micronesians there is a general consensus of opinion that they can no longer be
contrasted with the Polynesians. They are seen to be a branch of the Polynesians,
and that branch indeed which, on account of the close proximity of Melanesia, has
received the largest percentage of negroid elements.
Thus it is only the Polynesian question which awaits its solution. Nothing
supports the view that the Polynesians grew up in their present homes. Such a
theory is impossible on purely geographical grounds. We are left, therefore, with
immigration from outside. The claims of America on the one hand, of Indonesia
on the other, to be the cradle of the Polynesian race, have each their supporters.
Under the stress of more modern views on the penetration and wanderings of
nations, the disputants have agreed in recognising a physical and linguistic connec-
tion with the one region (Indonesia), without, however, denying ethnical relations
with the other region (America). The racial affinity of the Polynesians with the
inhabitants of the Malay archipelago is firmly established on the strength of
physical and linguistic resemblances. There is more difference of opinion as to
the nature and amount of the foreign admixture. As matters stand, a negroid
admixture can alone enter into the question. Even those who believe in the
former racial purity of the Polynesians must allow such an admixture in the case
of Micronesia. As the result of numerous modern observations, it appears probable,
however, that a similar admixture exists as far as Samoa and still farther ; even
remote Easter Island does not appear quite free from it.
A multitude of facts supports also the ethnical connection of Polynesia with
America. The faith and religious customs in both regions rest as a whole on the
same basis of animism and ancestor worship. In both we find the same rude cos-
mogony, the same respect for the tribal symbol, and the same cycle of myths, to
VOL. II — '20
306 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter m
say nothing of the numerous coincidences in the character of material culture
possessed by them, and in the want of iron common to both. Ethnology, in face
of these coincidences, is in a difficult position. Few ethnologists still venture to
think of any direct migration from America. It is certain that the Polynesians
were bold sailors, and often covered long stretches in their wanderings, voluntary
or involuntary ; but to sail over forty to sixty degrees of longitude without finding
an opportunity to put in anywhere would surely have been beyond their powers,
and still more those of their forefathers.
Under these circumstances the most satisfactory assumption is that of a large
Mongoloid primitive race, whose branches have occupied the entire " East " of the
inhabited world, East Asia, Oceania, and America. This theory extricates us at
once from the difficulty of explaining those coincidences ; but it does not directly
solve the problem of the great differences in the civilizations belonging to the
different branches of the Mongoloid family. It seems a bold guess to explain
it by absorption of influences of the surrounding world, but this theory offers
possibilities.
R THE WANDERINGS OF THE OCEANIANS
THE first really historical activities of the Oceanians are their migrations. At
the present day they are the most migratory people among the primitive races
of the world, and voyages of more than a thousand nautical miles are nothing
unusual. There are various incentives to such expeditions, such as the wish and
the necessity of trading with neighbouring tribes, starvation, which is not infre-
quent on the poor islands, political disturbances, and a pronounced love of roaming.
This last is the most prominent feature in the character of the Malay o-Polynesian,
which has, more than anything else, scattered this ethnic group over a region of
two hundred and ten degrees of longitude, from Madagascar to Easter Island, and
eighty degrees of latitude. Compared with this, the other causes of migration
shrink in general significance, although locally they are often of primary importance
and have had great bearing on history.
The number of the journeys known to us is not great ; the interval since the
opening up of the island world of Oceania is too short, and the region is too
remote. Yet the number is sufficient to bring more than one characteristic of the
past history of these races clearly before our eyes.
In the first place, the frequent involuntary voyages, when the seafarers were
driven far out of their course, teach us that the winds and currents have not set
from east to west with that persistency which old and celebrated theories main-
tain, and that therefore no natural phenomena hindered the Polynesian from
spreading from west to east ; under these conditions the way from the west as far
as distant Easter Island was not barred. Secondly, the frequency of these voyages
allows us to understand the true character of the Pacific Ocean. It is no waste of
waters, where islands and archipelagoes, like the oases in a desert, lie remote and
solitary, but a sea full of life, where the constant traffic prevents any one group of
islands from being absolutely cut off from the outer world.
The ocean has not presented this feature merely for the last few centuries : it
has been characteristic of it, since the day when the first keel touched the shores of
Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. We have the evidence of the aborigines
themselves for this. Their rich store of legends hinges on these old wanderings,
Australia and'
Oceania
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
307
^Hawaii
/ i
and as it deals more particularly with the earliest voyages, it gives us a wel-
come insight into the original relations of the islanders with one another and with
the outside world ; it is thought that the question of the original home of the Poly-
nesians might be solved in this way. The part which the land of Hawaiki under
its various names (Sawaii, Hawaii, Hapai, Hevava, Awaiki and others) plays in the
ancestral legends of most Polynesians is familiar even beyond the circle of ethno-
logists. It recurs among the Maoris of New Zealand, in Tahiti, Raiatea, Rarotonga,
the Marquesas, Hawaii, and elsewhere. To see in it a definite and limited locality,
from which the streams of emigration flowed at different times to the most varied
directions of the ocean, appears impracti-
cable in viewof the fact that the geograph-
ical position of Hawaiki is not accurately
fixed in all the traditions but varies con-
siderably ; it even meets us as the land
of ghosts, the western land where the
souls sink together with the sun into the
lower world.
Nevertheless, the investigation of the
primitive period in Polynesian history is
benefited in several instances by tracing
out the Hawaiki myth, especially if this
task be supplemented by a review of the
anthropological, ethnographical, and
geographical evidence. We may then
assume with great probability that the
island of Savaii, which belongs to the
Samoa group, was the starting point of
the migration of the Maoris to New
Zealand. Under the name of Hawaii it
also forms the starting point of the
of Raiatea and Tahiti. To
»
.
i
Savaii
„-*"** I
• (Tonga.- /t)
Sketch Map
of
Oceanic Migrations.
inhabitants
this fact, again, point the legends of the Marquesas and Hawaii group, partly also
of Rarotonga, which, on its side, as the " nearer Hawaiki " of tradition, served the
Maoris as an intermediate station on the way to New Zealand, while it was a
regular starting place for the inhabitants of the Austral and Gambier islands. A
final starting point was the Tonga group ; the inhabitants of Nukahiwa in the
Marquesas sent for their ancestors from Vavau with breadfruit and sugar cane.
Not only is the number of starting points surprisingly small in comparison with
the size of the territory occupied by the Polynesians, but the original relations
among the several groups appear simple to an astonishing degree. Examined in
the light of ethnology and history this simplicity cannot be maintained. It is an
ascertained fact as regards the Maoris that their immigration did not occur in the
form of one single wave of nations, but that fresh batches came from the north ;
and a very late subsequent immigration is specially recorded. The inhabitants of
the Hawaii islands are connected with Tahiti by language, customs, and legendary
travels ; on the other hand , the place names show the enduring recollection of
Samoa. Rarotonga is the focus of the entire remotest south, while it was itself
peopled with settlers almost simultaneously from Samoa and Tahiti. In the end,
'Tahiti seems to have sent emigrants to Rarotonga and Hawaii, also to the southern
Marquesas, as the correspondences in language and customs prove.
308 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [n^tcr m
It is difficult to determine the date of these migrations, since these movements
are a constant feature. Obviously, no reliance can be placed in the genealogical
lists of the several islands, which vary from twenty to eighty-eight generations
(p. 233). History does not carry us very far ; ethnology alone tells us that the
dispersion of the Polynesians over the Pacific Ocean cannot go back to any remote
period, for they have not had the time to develop any marked racial peculiarities.
It can only be a question of centuries for New Zealand and many other countries ;
in the case of Tahiti and perhaps Hawaii, the first settlement may be assigned
possibly to an earlier date. But in no case need we go back more than a millennium
and a half.
The wanderings extended also to Melanesia, in the east of which, as a conse-
quence of the distances, more settlements were planted than in the west. While
Fiji in respect of social and political customs shows almost as many Polynesian
traits as its two neighbours, Tonga and Samoa, and has experienced a considerable
infusion of Polynesian blood, we certainly find in New Guinea marked traces of
this blood, but an almost total absence of Polynesian customs and political insti-
tutions. It can hardly be shown at the present day, when the Western Pacific
contains so mixed a population, in what proportion migration has been deliberate
or involuntary, but doubtless, besides the frequent drif tings to east and west, there
were many cases of systematic colonisation. We thus get to know an aspect of
the Polynesians which is not often represented among primitive peoples. In Africa
the only examples are the Wanyamwesi of Central German East Africa (Vol.
Ill, p. 442), who since the middle of the nineteenth century have colonised the
whole equatorial east of the continent, and advanced their settlements far into the
southern Congo basin, and the Kioto in the Western Congo State (Vol. Ill, p. 472)
of whom Pogge, L. Wolf, and Wissmaun tell us how they succeed in planting
themselves among the inland tribes.
8. THE HISTORY OF THE OCEANIANS
A. CONJECTURES AS TO THE PKIMITIVE HISTORY OF THE OCEANIANS
OUR knowledge of the history of Oceania hardly goes beyond the discoveries
of the island world ; for the tradition of Polynesia, which goes considerably
further back into the past, does not distinguish between fact and fiction. Never-
theless, even in Oceania it is possible to have a glimpse of the past. Here, as in
Australia (p. 245), we find remains of old buildings and sites, whose nature pre-
supposes certain definite political and social conditions then existent ; but, besides
this, we have adequate data in the information which the early explorers give as
to the state of things which they discovered.
In the case of the Polynesians and Micronesians, as in that of the Australians,
it admits of no doubt that their present stage in civilization does not denote the
highest point of their development, but that in many departments of national life
a distinct retrogression has taken place. In Melanesia, on the other hand, where
the civilization does not even reach the present stage of the neighbouring peoples
on the east, all evidence for a previous higher culture is wanting. Melanesia is,
in this respect, like a hollow between an elevation in the west, the Malay civiliza-
tion, and a second somewhat lower elevation in the east, the Polynesian civili-
;!;;:!;;f """] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 309
zatiou. This by no means implies that the culture possessed by its inhabitants
was in itself inferior or lacked originality. On the contrary, as a glance at the
plate opposite page 304 tells us, the arts were highly developed in Melanesia ;
indeed much of the material culture, and some branches of intellectual culture,
surpass anything at least shown by the Micronesians. It is only in political
respects that the Melanesiau is behindhand. The cause of this is to be found
primarily in the character of the negroid race, and secondly in the absence of
any stimulus from outside. Where these causes are absent, as in Fiji, even the
Melauesian has shown himself capable of political development.
The decadence of the Polynesian and Micronesian civilization is shown in two
ways : first, in buildings and works of a size, mass, and extent, which preclude
all idea that they could have been erected by a population at the stage in which
the first Europeans found them ; and, secondly, in the political and social institu-
tions, which bear every trace of decay. The South Sea is not poor in remains of
the first class. On Pitcairn Island, which has long been deserted by all primitive
inhabitants, even now the stone foundations of ancient temples are to be found ;
on Rapa old fortifications crown the hills, and on Huaheine a dolmen rises near
a cyclopean causeway. Under the guano layers of the Christmas Islands roads
skilfully constructed of coral-rag bear witness to an age of a greater spirit of
enterprise, of a higher plane of technical skill, and of a more pronounced national
life. Tinian, one of the Marianne group, has its colossal stone pillars, crowned
with capitals, to mark the dwelling places of the old and more vigorous Chamorro.
But all this is nothing in comparison with the ruins of Naninatal on Ponape, and
the stone images on Eapanui in Easter Island.
The decadence in the political and social field is not generally so obvious as
that in technical skill ; but it is incontestable everywhere, and has been distinctly
more disastrous to the national development of the islanders. This is shown by the
loss of the old patriarchal society, in which the king was reverenced by the people
as a god, where he was the natural owner of all the laud, and where the view pre-
vailed that all was from him and all was for him. When James Cook and his
contemporaries appeared in the South Sea, in many places hardly any trace of such
a society remained, while in others it was rapidly disappearing. The ancient
dynasties had either been entirely put aside and the States dissolved, or if they
still existed, only a faint gleam of their former glory was reflected on the ancient
rulers. The old organisation of the people, with its strictly defined grades, had
already been destroyed ; and a struggle of the upper class for property and power
liad taken the place of the former feudalism. This effort had been everywhere
crowned with success, and had mainly contributed to break up the rigid and yet
universally acceptable system. Finally, even religion entirely lost its ancient
character. The original gods were indeed retained; but their number, at first
limited, had been in the course of time indefinitely multiplied, since the gods
springing from the class of the high nobility were gradually put on a level with
the older deities. Thus the national and popular religion was changed into a
superstitious worship of the individual. As Karl Meinicke insists, it is one and
the same thing which destroyed the State and the religion of the Polynesians —
the degradation of the old civil and religious authorities or the promotion of the
formerly lower degrees. But in any case the abandonment of the old idea of a
State was complete. The tokens of retrogression in Oceania, when collected, speak
310 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
a clear language. They tell us, in the first place, that there must have been a
period in the prehistoric period of the South Sea Islanders when an overgrowth of
the population on the already settled islands made it necessary to send out colo-
nies ; further we learn that the period of colonisation must have also been the
period of the highest development of culture. Colonisation was only possible under
the government of a rigid political organisation, of which we can at most discover
a reflection in the subsequent life of the South Sea races. We may not assume
a growth of technical knowledge on the settled islands, such as was requisite for
the erection of large buildings, so that even in the field of material culture we can
only suppose the existence of an original and more universal standard of accom-
plishment. We thus find the phenomenon, interesting both from the historical and
the geographical point of view, that the moment of the widest dispersion of a race
denotes the beginning of its decadence. This phenomenon is not surprising if we
take into account the nature of the homes of the race. It is easier for the popula-
tion of small islands to attain a higher culture, and a more strict political organisa-
tion than to maintain themselves at the stage which they inherited or brought
with them. The narrow limits of space make a comprehensive scheme easy and
possible, but involve the danger of a conflict between opposite parties and thus the
destruction of the existing system. None of the Polynesian islands escaped this
fate, especially since the character of the people shows few traits of conservatism.
Quarrels and disputes have been the chief and the favourite occupation of the
Polynesians as long as we have known them. The decadence is the greatest
where the island communities are the smallest, and where therefore destructive
influences are most powerful ; thus in the centre of the world of islands hardly
a trace of the ancient culture has come down to us. When the Europeans
appeared on the scene, marked traces of this culture (in one place a vigorous
national life, in another stupendous monuments) were only extant on the outer
belt, in Hawaii, New Zealand, and the remote Easter Island.
The fall of the Maoris is the best illustration of the rapidity with which the
attainments of civilization can be lost. At all times addicted to violence and
intolerant of united effort, they split up the larger States of their twin islands
into numerous mutually hostile and aggressive communities, from which every
notion of a national unity and its effect in maintaining a civilization has disap-
peared. At the same time the originally vigorous racial character lost more and
more in moral restraint, and became more savage and cruel. The downfall of the
ancient religion finally accompanied this change. The old gods lost their per-
sonality, and were transformed into a multitude of forest and sea demons,
unparalleled for extravagance and grotesqueness of form. The representations 1
and 2, 4 and 5, 7 and 8 on the plate at page 334, give a good idea of them. Art
and technical skill did not escape. As early as Cook's time, it was no longer pos-
sible to produce carvings of the older kind (vide Eigs. 1, 4, and 5 in the same
r.late),
B. THE HISTORY OF THE MELANESIANS
(a) General Remarks. — Melanesia, apart from Fiji, has no history properly
so-called. We are acquainted merely with the treatment which the inhabitants
have received at the hands of foreigners. The chief cause of this phenomenon,
which recalls the passivity of the Australians, is the slight political capacity of the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 311
negroid race. A second cause is that isolation from the outside world which can
be partly attributed to the dreaded fierceness of the Melanesians. The more enter-
prising Polynesians have never shown any great inclination to attempt colonisation
on a large scale in Central and Western Melanesia, nor have the whites entered on
the task of opening up these islands with the zeal which they have shown in the
rest of Oceania since the days of Cook. Exploration and missionary activity are
tardy and timid in these parts, and European colonisation is still later in coming.
Notwithstanding this late beginning of serious encroachments from outside, the
Melanesians came early into hostile contact with the whites. Out of the long roll
of explorers, from J. Le Maire and W. Schouten (1616) on, past W. Dampier (1700)
and J. Eoggeveen (1722) to L. A. de Bougainville and de Surville (1768), there is
hardly one who had not been guilty of the greatest cruelties to the natives. Even
Cook, in 1774, ordered the natives of Erromango to be shot down with cannon for
some trifling misconduct. But the nineteenth century has behaved still more out-
rageously to these islands. Their wealth in sandalwood soon attracted numerous
traders, English and American in particular, but also Polynesians. All these per-
sons, who merely sought their own advantage, behaved like savages. They plun-
dered peaceable tribes, and forced them to work as slaves on other islands ; they
cut down the valuable trees, and thus caused disputes with their owners, which
generally ended in the defeat of the latter.
Extortions and unprovoked bombardment of villages were matters of daily
occurrence. The traders captured a chief, and only released him at a ransom of
a shipload of sandalwood ; and once when the inhabitants of Fate in the New
Hebrides fled from the crew of an English ship and a body of Tongan allies into
a cave with wives and children, their opponents lighted a fire at the entrance and
suffocated all the fugitives.
The consequences of this treatment of the natives were soon seen. The warlike
and able-bodied Melanesians returned blow for blow, and avenged the outrages
committed by the whites upon their fellows when and where they could. Who-
ever was imprudent enough to land upon their coasts was murdered. It thus comes
about that the history of the exploration of Melanesia down to the present day has
been written in blood. Even missions (cf. below, p. 340) have met with greater
initial difficulties here, and found a harder task than anywhere else in the
South Sea.
The long duration of racial struggles has produced the result that the national
characteristics of Melanesia are no longer in their primitive integrity. New
Guinea, where little more than the fringe of the island has been explored, has,
indeed, suffered little, and the inhabitants of the Bismarck archipelago and the
Solomons have hitherto successfully repulsed any serious attack on their modes of
life and thought or their material possessions. The state of things is less favour-
able in the more easterly archipelagoes, Santa Cruz, New Hebrides, New Caledonia,
and Fiji. Here, undoubtedly, the stronger infusion of Polynesian blood has weak-
ened the powers of resistance of the population ; while these groups have also been
longest exposed to the brunt of the attacks of the whites. The result, as is always
the case where the barbarian comes into touch with civilization, has been a decline
in the numbers, physique, and morals of the native population. This is most
marked in New Caledonia, where the natives, under the influence of the French
system of transportation, have sunk from a warlike and honour-loving nation,
312 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
endowed with high intellectual gifts, into a ragged mob. It is difficult to form
an idea of the numerical shrinkage, since the older accounts are mere estimates.
Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the New Hebrides and Santa Cruz have undoubt-
edly much diminished in numbers, a change which in Fiji can be proved by actual
statistics.
(b) Fiji. — The great political capacity, judging by a Melanesian standard, of
the Fiji (or Viti) Islanders, can be traced to the strong admixture of Polynesian
elements and the position of the archipelago, which lies advanced toward the east.
Their history begins with those feuds which have played a part in all the Polyne-
sian Islands for centuries. In these wars, unimportant enough in themselves, the
Europeans interfered about the beginning of the nineteenth century, without any
political intentions at first. In 1804 twenty-seven convicts, escaped from Norfolk
Island, took sides sometimes with one, sometimes with another chief ; but the crew
of the slaver "Eliza," which was wrecked on the cliffs of Nairi in 1808, had a still
more decisive share in the course of events, since they possessed muskets. Their
choice fell on the chief, Naulivau of Mbau, who thus was enabled to overthrow
the head of the " State " of Verata in Eastern Viti Levu. His successors remained
in possession of the supreme power until 1874. After a reign full of military suc-
cesses, which won him the surname " Vuni Valu," or " root of war," Naulivau died
in the year 1829. He was followed by his brother, Tanoa, one of the most ferocious
cannibals whom Fiji ever knew.
Under his son, Seru, better known by the name of Kakobau or Thakombau
(1852-1874), the kingdom founded by the first Vuni Valu reached its greatest
prosperity and extent, comprising almost the entire archipelago. His accession
occurred at a time when the Fiji archipelago had attracted, in more than one
respect, the attention of the whites. The Wesleyan mission had obtained a foot-
ing here since 1835, in 1844 the Catholic mission also. Principally through the
activity of the former the old feuds had stopped, at any rate in the coast districts
of Viti Levu ; English, American, and other white traders were able to settle there
in complete security. In 1847 the United States of America, in order to express
their appreciation of the newly discovered field, established a consular agency there.
At the same time artful aspersions were cast on the Wesleyan mission in order to
weaken English influence. In 1849, when the house of the consul, Williams, was
burnt, the natives stole some of his property. Williams demanded from Thakombau
compensation to the amount of " three thousand dollars, twelve and a half cents."
An unprejudiced witness informs us this "exact" sum was not justified, and was
not paid. In the next year, in consequence of other thefts, it had mounted to five
thousand and one dollars and thirty-eight cents. Williams laid this demand
before the commanders of two American warships, with a request for support, but
it was rejected. In 1855, however, Captain Boutwell, who had been sent to Fiji for
a renewed inquiry, ordered Thakombau to pay capital and interest forthwith. The
sum to be paid was fixed in a second letter at thirty thousand dollars, and threats
of force were held out. Finally, Boutwell sent for the chief on board his ship,
demanded forty-five thousand dollars, and threatened to hang him. Thakombau
then signed the agreement.
Complications, also, were threatened with France. Fourteen years after the
unsuccessful attempt at settlement of 1844, French Catholic missionaries tried
12
Printed by tli« Bibliogr
SPKCIMF.NS OF MIC
(Partly from Kubary's "BehrSge tur Ken: • rolinen- Archipels", partly
13
Institut, Leipzig.
;SIAN CARVING.
>y L. Sutterlin from the originals in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin.)
Xeto York: Dodd, Sfcad & Co
am/] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 313
once more to gain a footing on Viti Levu. Since Thakombau, who in 1854 had
adopted Christianity, partly from conviction, but mostly on political grounds, felt
the impossibility of any longer maintaining his position, especially since his rela-
tions with Tonga were very strained at that time, he determined to escape from his
(litliculties and cede his land to England. On October 12, 1858, he made a treaty
with the English consul, Pritchard, to which all the chiefs of the island subse-
quently agreed, to the following effect: Thakombau, who wished to become a
British subject but yet retain his title and suzerainty, promised two hundred thou-
sand acres of land ; in return, England was to take over the American debt. The
English government, from the wish not to cause unpleasantness with America,
refused the offer. Now, not only did the Americans immediately press their
claims, but Tonga demanded a large sum of money for the assistance which it
professed to have previously rendered. The monarch in his difficulty accepted the
proposal of the Melbourne Polynesian Company in 1868, which promised to satisfy
the claims of America in return for the grant of the land offered to the English
government. The flourishing condition of the German trading firms, which had
been active in the country since 1860, had drawn public attention to Fiji. On
conclusion of the treaty, the company paid the Americans £9,000. In return, it at
once received one hundred and ten thousand acres.
During these negotiations there had been incessant disputes among the natives
themselves ; at the same time there had been quarrels between them and the numer-
ous white immigrants. In order to put an end to this state of things, Thakombau
in 1871 formed a constitutional government, with a ministry composed of twelve
chiefs, a legislative council, chosen by the whites, and a supreme court. So long
as the interests of the government and the colonists coincided, this artifice, fre-
quently tried in the South Sea, was harmless in results ; but when the whites were
required to pay taxes, they simply ignored the laws. The public debt soon grew
to £80,000. Thakombau saw no alternative left him but to renew the offer of his
land to Great Britain, but this time as a gift. England at first refused it again,
and only changed her purpose from the fear that other powers (America, or Ger-
many, which was interested just then in the enterprise of the Godeff roys — vide
p. 327) might close with the offer. On September 30, 1874, England accepted
Thakombau's offer, which had actually in the interval been made to the German
Empire and declined by it. Fiji became a British crown colony. England took
over all the debts, and paid Thakombau a yearly allowance, until his death in
1883. The sales of land completed before the British annexation were not at once
recognised, but gradually tested ; in 1885, more than ten years later, the Germans
•concerned were compensated with a small solatium (£10,620). In the spring of
1902 Fiji concluded a separate federal treaty with New Zealand (Mr. Seddon) ; a
•counterpart to the Australian Commonwealth.
C. THE HISTORY OF THE MICRONESIANS
THE small average size of the Micronesian Islands has not prevented the inhab-
itants from developing a peculiar and, in many respects, higher culture than their
kinsfolk in the east and south (vide the illustration, " Micronesian Carvings ").
The several localities have, indeed, proved too limited for any development of
political importance. The only events to be recorded are the usual feuds between
314 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
the hostile village communities, although, judging by the ancient buildings and ter-
races on the Pelews, on Ponape and the Marianne Islands, the conditions for a
politically organised activity must have been far more favourable in earlier times
than at the present day. It is at present impossible to determine whether the
decadence of the Pelews and the Carolines is due to other reasons than the
antagonism of conflicting interests produced by the cramped space.
On the other hand, the process of disintegration on the Marianne Islands can
accurately be traced. All accounts from the period anterior to the beginning of
the Spanish conquest and conversion speak in the highest terms of the condition
of the islands, their high stage of civilization, and large population. Guam was
compared to one immense garden, and in 1668, at the beginning of the Jesuit mis-
sion, contained one hundred and eighty splendid villages. The total number of
the Chamorro, as the aborigines were called by the Spaniards, is reckoned vari-
ously ; a favourite estimate is 200,000, but even 600,000 has been given ; the lowest
calculation does not sink below 40,000. In addition to an advanced agriculture,
which notwithstanding primitive tools could boast of cultivating rice, we find an
excellently developed art of navigation, a knowledge of pottery, a regulated calen-
dar, and so forth. The Spaniards destroyed all this in a few years. According to
an accurate calculation, in 1710, forty-two years after the arrival of the Jesuit
father Sanvitores, there were 3,539 Chamorro still left; in 1741 there were 1,816.
Their rapid diminution was caused by the fierce fights between both parties, which
broke out so soon as the freedom-loving inhabitants perceived that conversion in
the ultimate resort aimed at subjecting them to the Spanish yoke ; the wars did
not stop before 1699. The census of 1741 brought home to the Spaniards the
magnitude of the devastation wrought by them. In order to make up for the
alarming mortality they introduced Tagals from the Philippines. The number of
the inhabitants after that increased ; in 1783 it amounted to 3,231 souls; in 1803
to 4,303 ; in 1815 to 5,406 ; and in 1850 to more than 9,000. But an epidemic of
smallpox raged among the population in 1856. It had only risen again to 5,610 in
1864, and at the present day it reaches to about double that figure. The reckless,
extermination of the people is almost the least evil which the Spaniards perpetrated
on the Chamorro; the annihilation of the nationality was still worse. At the
present day no more traces are left of the old culture with its buildings, its navi-
gation, its agriculture, and technical skill, than of the old strong and proud phy-
sique of the inhabitants. In place of a love of freedom the miserable half-caste
people of to-day show a dull indifference, while lethargy has taken the place of in-
dustry, and an unthinking use of Christian customs is substituted for a naive
paganism. Next to the Tasmanians no people in the South Sea can have felt more
deeply the curse of contact with the Europeans than the Chamorro.
D. THE HISTORY OF THE POLYNESIANS
AN account of the history of the Polynesians presents difficulties, in so far as
every separate group has its own history. It is the exception to find any points of
connection between neighbouring archipelagoes. This necessitates the separate
treatment of the larger and more important groups at any rate, although certain
brojid characteristics recur regularly. Since this phenomenon is still more marked
in the case of the smaller and less densely peopled archipelagoes, whose importance
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 315
is slight, we shall therefore abandon the task of any detailed description, and refer
the reader for their most interesting features to the section on missionary work
(p. 340).
(a) East Polynesia. — Within the region of Polynesia the Hervey, Tubuai,
Society, Tuamotu and Marquesas Islands form a mass which stands out apart
from the other clusters (vide map, p. 232). This purely external grouping has,
it is true, no geological foundation, but justifies the inclusion of the archipelagoes
under the general title of East Polynesia, although the relations of the groups,
among themselves belong mostly to prehistoric or very early times.
(a) Taliiti. — The history of East Polynesia, whether native or colonial, is.
mainly connected with the double island of Tahiti (Otaheiti). It is the only focus-
of an independent development, and also the natural starting point and centre of
the French Colonial Empire in East Polynesia. When Samuel Wallis finally dis-
covered the island on June 19, 1767, he found three States there, which were fight-
ing savagely for the upper hand. The Spaniards took possession of the island on
January 1, 1775, but they soon abandoned it again after the death of their captain,
Domingo de Bonechea, on January 26. In 1789 the mutineers of the "Bounty"
(p. 259) landed on Tahiti ; some preferred to remain there, took the side of the
king Ofcu or Pomare, as he preferred to call himself, and thus enabled him to ex-
tend his sovereignty over the other islands of the archipelago. The first English
missionaries landed there on March 7, 1797, and were destined soon to play a large
part in the political life of Tahiti. In 1802 Pomare carried away the sacred Oro
(Orohho) figure from the Marae (Morai) at Atahuru, the possession of which was.
fiercely contested. But he was compelled to surrender the image in the end, and
died suddenly on September 3, 1803, and his son Pomare II, born in 1780, was.
forced to fly. He took up his abode on Murea (Eimeo), the headquarters of the
Christian mission. In July, 1807, he crossed with a number of Christians over to
Tahiti, surprised his enemies, and massacred them so relentlessly that the whole
island rose against him and the missionaries, and drove them all back to Huahine
and Murea. But in the battle at Narii (November 12, 1815) King Pomare II,,
who had become a Christian on July 12, 1812, completely defeated his enemies;,
the other islands of the archipelago adopted Christianity in consequence. Pomare
crushed the power of the nobles, and gave the islands at the end of 1818 a new
and written constitution. He died on November 30, 1821. Pomare's infant son
died on January 11, 1827. His sister Aimata, a girl of seventeen, then mounted
the throne as Pomare IV (or Pomare Wahine I), while her aunt Ariipaia, as was
customary, remained regent.
The reign of Aimata is marked by an overflowing tide of calamity, which
soon burst on Tahiti, and ended in the loss of its independence. It began with
the attempt of the Catholic Church, made in November, 1836, from the Gambier
Islands, to gain a footing in the island. In consequence of a law introduced
by the British preachers of the gospel, the French missionaries were forbidden
to land ; they therefore appealed to France for aid. On August 27, 1838, Captain
Abel Dupetit-Thouars appeared off Papeete with the frigate " Venus," in order to^
demand satisfaction, consisting of an apology under the sign manual of the queen,
and two thousand piastres in Spanish money ; the queen was forced to comply..
316 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter 111
In April, 1839, Captain C. P. Th. Laplace demanded that the Catholic Church
should be granted as ample privileges as the Protestant, and that a building site
for a church should be conceded. And in September, 1842, Dupetit-Thouars, who
had returned, once more expressed extravagant "wishes" to the government, and,whrn
they could not be granted, proclaimed a French protectorate in defiance of the pro-
tests of the queen and the English missionaries. When a Tahitian popular assembly,
relying on the intervention of the English Captain Nicholas, declared for England
and Pomare IV (1843), Dupetit-Thouars on November 6th deposed the queen, and
threw into prison the English consul, Pritchard, in whose house she had taken
refuge. The storm of indignation roused in England by this procedure forced
France in 1844 to reinstate Queen Pomare IV; but the protectorate over the
island was retained. It was only after a three years' war, waged with great
fury on both sides, that the Tahitians submitted on February 6, 1847, and the
queen returned from Eimeo to Papeete.
Pomare IV died after a reign of fifty years, on September 17, 1877. Her son,
Pomare V, abandoned all his imaginary sovereign rights to France on June 19, 1880,
in return for an annuity of £1000, and died in 1891.
The political development has not been favourable in any way to the preserva-
tion of the national existence. In Cook's time the inhabitants were estimated at
120,000, a figure far too high, but one which in any case denotes an unusual
density of population; in 1892 the numbers hardly reached 10,000. The
introduction of disease, immorality, and drunkenness has taught the Tahitians
a bitter lesson about the " blessings " of civilization.
(/3) The Remaining Archipelagoes. — The history of the island groups which
cluster round Tahiti, the Society, Tuamotu (Paumotu), Marquesas, and Tubuai
(or Austral) Islands, is not without some anthropological, political, and religious
interest. The picture presented to the discoverers was everywhere the same ;
war and discord prevailed, limited usually to the separate islands and groups.
The warlike inhabitants of the Tuamotu island, Anaa, undertook even at the
beginning of the nineteenth century bold expeditions to other islands, plundered
them and carried off the inhabitants as captives, until a stop was put to their
proceedings by the influence of Tahiti.
The relations between the natives and the Europeans in these parts were every-
where due to the instrumentality of the missions. It would have been well if the
matter had rested with the introduction of one confession only. But the Pro-
testant missionaries were soon followed on every group by Catholics under llio
protection of France. The inevitable result was an effort on the Protestant side
to keep the intruders off, and on the side of the French Catholics to gain a religious
and political footing. In all this the native was the scapegoat. Any infectious
diseases which the traders had not introduced were communicated by the crews
of men-of-war. The French tricolour now floats over the whole large group of
islands, and the Romish propaganda has succeeded, though not to the full extent
desired, in breaking down the undisputed power of Protestantism. European
civilization as such has finally diminished the number of inhabitants and has
put a mere caricature in the place of a nationality which, despite many dark
traits, was primitive and vigorous.
Aiixtniliit inn!
Oceania
"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 31'
(7) Rapanui (Easter Island}. — Te Pito te Henua, as the natives, or Rapauui,
as the other Polynesians call the most remote islet of the vast island world, is,
with its area of forty-five square miles, one of the smallest high islands of the Pacific
Ocean. Nevertheless it draws our attention on account of one of the weightiest
problems of ethnology, and thus of the history of mankind. If any connection at
all exists between Polynesians and Americans, we must regard Eapanui as the most
easterly pier in the bridge.
There is nothing in the ethnography of Easter Island, as known to the Europeans,
which supports such a theory. Salmon, the Tahitian who accompanied the German
" Hyena " expedition of 1882 under Lieutenant-Captain Geiseler, and the Amer-
ican "Mohican" expedition of 1886, reported indeed a story of the natives of
Rapanui, according to which they are supposed to have come in a large boat from
one of the Galapagos islands with the trade-wind and to have landed at Anakena
in the north of the island ; but he did not disguise the fact that this tradition was
contrary to the ideas of other natives, who maintained that there had been an
immigration from the west. The architecture of Rapanui is supposed to show
resemblances to buildings in Central and South America ; but the simple huts
of the Easter Islanders are not to be compared with those colossal erections
(vide the plates, pp. 264 and 314 of Vol. I). Again, the construction of the
famous stone images, some fifteen feet high, made of lava (lianga) extends
to comparatively recent periods, when there can be no possible idea of America's
influence ; besides this, productions of similar size, although not of quite the same
character, were nothing extraordinary among the other Oceanians, at least in
earlier times.
For this reason the modern relations between Rapanui and America are all the
more frequent. Intercourse with the whites generally has indeed only brought
the islanders misery and destruction hitherto. The beginning of the "mission
of civilization " is marked by the landing of the Dutchman Jacob Roggeween,
on April 6, 1722, who ordered the natives to be fired upon without any reason
whatever. He found the island then most prosperous and densely populated,
an appearance which it has long since lost. The natives were possibly too friendly
and yielding to the whites. In 1805 the ship " Nancy " from New London, which
had been engaged in seal fishery at Mas a fuera (southwest of Juan. Fernandez)
came to Rapanui and carried away twelve men and ten women after a desperate
fight. The men, when, three days after, they were released from their chains on
the open sea, sprang overboard immediately, in order to reach their home by swim-
ming ; but the women were carried to Mas a fuera. The " Nancy " is said to have
made several subsequent attempts at robbery. The American ship " Pindos " later
carried away as many girls as there were men on board, and on the next morning
as a pastime fired at the natives collected on the beach. The most calamitous
period began in 1863. Peruvian slave dealers then established a depot on Rapanui
in order to impress labourers for the guano works in Peru from the surrounding
archipelagoes ; for this purpose they carried away the majority of the inhabitants
of Rapanui. Most of them were, however, brought back at the representations
of the French government ; but unfortunately smallpox was introduced by them
and caused great ravages. In 1866 Catholic missionaries began their work, but
they left the island after a few years, accompanied by some faithful followers, and
went to Mangarewa. The last reduction in the number of the population was
318 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
effected by the deportation of four hundred Easter Islanders by a Tahitian firm
to Tahiti and Eimeo, where they were employed as plantation labourers.
The population has not been able to bear such frequent and heavy drams on
its vitality. Estimated by Cook at 700, by later travellers at 1,500 souls, and
numbering before 1860 some 3,000, it has dwindled at the present day to 150,
whose absorption in the mass of the immigrant Tahitians, Chilians, and others is
only a question of time. Since 1888 Eapanui has been used by Chili as a penal
colony.
(8) Pitcairn. — The history of Pitcairn, an isolated island lying far to the
southwest of the Tuamotu, is, during the period which we can survey, detached
from the framework of native history ; its personages are almost entirely European
immigrants. Pitcairn is one of the few islands which were uninhabited when the
Europeans discovered them, although numerous remains in the form of stone
images, relics of Marae, stone axes, and graves with skeletons attest that the island
was once populated.
The modern history of the island begins with the mutiny of the crew of the
" Bounty" against their captain, Bligh, 1779 (p. 259). While the latter steered with
his eighteen companions in his open boat to Batavia, the twenty-four mutineers
sailed first to Tahiti. A part of them remained behind there (p. 315), while eight
men, under the leadership of the helmsman Christian, accompanied by six Tahitian
men and twelve women, set sail in January, 1790, for the uninhabited island of
Pitcairn. In order to prevent any escape from the island, Christian burnt the
" Bounty," whose tall masts might have betrayed the refuge of the mutineers. The
beginning of the community was at once marked by disputes and quarrels ; the
men were killed in fighting, and in 1801, John Adams (formerly Alex. Smith,
d. March, 1829), aged thirty-six, was the only man on the island, with some
women and twenty children.
Adams, realising by the previous course of affairs the danger which threatened
the little society, struck out other paths. By his care in educating the young
generation a tribal community was developed which, to adopt Meinicke's ex-
pression, united many of the good qualities of the Europeans with the virtues of
the Polynesians, and by its sterling character and high morality, won the sympa-
thies of England to no small extent, especially since these colonists regarded them-
selves as Englishmen and spoke English as familiarly as Tahitian. England has
always watched over the welfare of this little society. The limited water supply
of the island having threatened to prove insufficient for the growing numbers, the
eighty-seven inhabitants then living were removed by the English government to
Tahiti in 1831 ; but most of them soon returned to Pitcairn. When, in 1856, in
consequence of hurricanes it became difficult to find food for the once more rapidly
increasing population, 187 of the 194 settlers were removed to the then uninhab-
ited Norfolk Island. The majority remained there, and increased and prospered.
In 1871 the number had risen to 340 souls; in 1891 it reached 738 ; and, accord-
ing to the last account, it now is 900 souls. Some, however, this time also, could
not live in a strange island, and returned to Pitcairn, where their number in 1879
had again risen to 79 souls.1 Contrary to the disquieting rumours which the Ger-
U790, 27 ; 1800, 29 ; 1825, 66 ; 1831, 87 ; 1837, 92 ; 1841, 114; 1856, 194 ; 1864, 43 ; 1873, 76 ;
1879, 93 ; 1884, 104 ; 1898, 142 ; 1901, 126.
aXS8"**] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 319
man press circulated in 1896, to the effect that Pitcairn no longer supplied the
requirements of human inhabitants, the population is thriving at the present day.
(b) Hawaii. — (a) The Pagan Period. — The history of Hawaii begins for us with
its discovery by James Cook ; all that took place on it previously bears the impress
of myth. The legends mention sixty-seven ancestors of Kamehameha I, and place
therefore the beginning of the settlement of Hawaii at a period which would
approximately correspond to the sixth century of the Christian era. As a matter
of fact human bones have been discovered under old strata of coral and lava
streams ; in any case with such a system of chronology a large margin of error must
be allowed for. Far more important is the exceptional evidence for the solution
of the question of the origin of the Hawaiians. A large mass of the traditions
point to the Samoan Sawaii (p. 307), as the chief point of emigration, without
necessarily excluding accretions from other groups of Polynesia. The recurrence
of Samoan geographical names in Hawaii is an argument in favour of the legends.
If we may judge by the frequent mention which they make of Tahiti and the
Marquesas the main route seems to have led over these islands.
A. Fornander arrives at the conclusion that, some twenty generations after the
first immigration, about the eleventh century, that is, a new wave of nations
touched Hawaii, produced by a general movement in the island worlds of the
South Sea, which, again, was due to the expulsion of Polynesian immigrants from
the Fiji Islands. Into this period, therefore, fall, according to legend, the
journeys of famous chiefs and priests to distant isles, rendered possible from the
greater enterprise of the ancient races and the higher perfection of navigation at
that time. The first and only attempt at oversea expansion gave way to a fresh
period of isolation, which lasts at least into the sixteenth century, probably down
to the date of Cook's landing. During this long period the Hawaiian people de-
veloped all its peculiar characteristics ; then it was that those numerous States and
societies were founded, which were mutually hostile. The waves of war surged
high in the fourteenth century, when King Kalaunuiohua tried for the first time to
unite all the islands under his sceptre. The first intercourse with Europeans dates,
according to James J. Jarves and Eemy, from the sixteenth century. In 1527
one of the three vessels of Don Alvarado de Saavedra is said to have been
wrecked on the cliffs of South Kona, and in 1555, the Spanish navigator Juan
Gaetano is supposed to have discovered the Hawaiian Islands. This intercourse,
even if it is based on fact (vide Figs. 3a and 3b on the plate facing p. 334), pro-
duced no results on the external and internal history of the country.
James Cook, on his landing (1778), found three States : Hawaii and Maui,
both of which were governed by one ruler (Taraiopu, Terriobu), since the ruler of
Hawaii had married the queen-widow of Maui ; and thirdly, Oahu, to which Kauai
and ISTuhau belonged. Not only were Oahu and Hawaii at war with each other,
but all these States were riddled with internal dissensions. The task of reducing
this chaos to order was reserved for Kamehameha I (Tamea-Mea ; 1789-1819),
who not only won more foreign successes than any other Polynesian ruler, but in
intellectual gifts towered above the average of his race. He had distinguished him-
self in war as a young man, and national bards prophesied of him that he would
one day unite the people. A few years after Cook's murder (February 14, 1779)
lie began to put into practice his bold plans, on Hawaii at first, and after its sub-
320 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter m
jugation, on Maui (1781) aud the other islands. Partly by his personal valour,
partly with an army disciplined by the help of Europeans (to which after 1804 a
fleet of twenty-one ships was joined), he attained his object in 1795. After storni-
incr the fort " Pali " on Oahu, to which island Kamehameha is said to have crossed
O
with 16,000 men, he proclaimed himself sole monarch of the Hawaiian Isles.
The two northwest islands, Kauai and Nuhau, then voluntarily submitted.
Like the Zulu king Tchaka and the AVauyamwesi leader Mirambo (Vol. Ill, pp.
437, 443), Kamehameha has been compared to great rulers of the Mediterranean
sphere of civilization. Turnbull places him by the side of Philip of Macedou,
and Jarves calls him the Napoleon of the South Sea ; to others he has suggested
Peter the Great. He must have been a powerful personality. Adalbert de
Chamisso was proud of the fact that he had shaken hands not only with General
Marquis de Lafayette and Sir Joseph Banks, but also with the great Hawaiian.
Kamehameha I was, as Theodor Waitz says, not merely great in intellectual
capacity, he was still greater by his moral strength and the power and purity
of his will. If we take into account also his majestic bearing, which com-
manded respect, the vastness of his influence is at once accounted for.
The course of Kamehameha's reign, after he had united his kingdom, was
peaceful. It was for the Hawaiians an era of revolution in every field, though
least so in that of social life. Kamehameha made no changes in the relations of
the several classes of the people to each other and to the monarch. The lower
class remained, then as formerly, in its strictly dependent and subservient condi-
tion, and he had further weakened the power of the nobility, which even before his
time had been slight. A new feature was the external reputation gained by polit-
ical union, and the growth of the people into a power unprecedented in the Pacific.
This, at an early period for Oceania, had quickly turned the attention of the Euro-
pean powers and of North America to the north of the Pacific Ocean, as is shown
by the numerous British, Eussian, American, and French expeditions. The changes
in the domain of culture and economics involved more momentous consequences
for the future of the Hawaiian people. Only the higher classes of the people were
materially Europeanised ; the masses had to continue for some time in the old pagan-
ism and the ancient Polynesian semi-culture. Nevertheless it could not be long before
the whole nation was subject to this change. Kamehameha neither intended nor sus-
pected that it should take the form of a complete disintegration of the old national
life. This decline was mainly produced by the introduction of European immi-
grants, who made their way into all the influential posts, and produced a temporary
economic prosperity by transmarine commercial enterprise and a policy of tariffs ;
but at the same time their intimate relations with the natives were destined to
destroy the old religion, the stronghold of Hawaiian nationality.
($) The Christian Period to the Extinction of the line of Kamehameha. — As
long as Kamehameha held the reins of government with the strong hand, the
crash was delayed. Kamehameha was all his life a firm supporter of paganism,
for only through a strict observance of the traditional doctrines was it possible in
those times of ferment to retain the respect of the people for the person and powt-r
of the godlike monarch. His death, which occurred on May 8, 1819, changed
the situation. Liholiho (Bio-Rio), his son, who mounted the throne as Kame-
hameha II, immediately sank to be a puppet in the hands of his nobles, and
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 321
especially of his co-regent Kaahumanu (Kahumonna), the favourite wife of the
late king, and his aged chief counsellor, Kaleimoku (Karemaku), the " Pitt of the
South Sea." At their advice he abolished the ancient and revered custom of Taboo,
and compelled women to share a large public banquet and to eat the pork which
was forbidden them. The majority of the people gladly welcomed this step. The
minority, who, under the lead of Kekuaokalani, a cousin of the king, remained true
to paganism, were defeated in the sanguinary battle of Kuamoo; Kekuaokalani
fell, together with his heroic wife, Manona. The destruction of the old temples
and images, already initiated, was carried out with renewed zeal ; nevertheless
idolatry had many supporters in secret. The half-heartedness of the reforming
policy was more unfortunate ; the Hawaiians had been deprived of paganism, but
nothing tangible was put in its place.
The visits of European and American squadrons during this period induced the
monarch to seek an alliance with England, particularly since Kussia and the United
States had already shown signs of establishing themselves permanently in the
archipelago. Kamehameha I, in order to increase his dignity at home by the
support of the great world power, had made over his kingdom to England in Febru-
ary, 1794, but his offer did not meet with any cordial response. In 1823 Liholiho
and his consort, Kamamalo, went to London, in order in this way to anticipate the
wishes of others. They both died in 1824 in England, but were buried in their
native country. Liholiho's successor, his brother Keaukeauouli (Kauikeouli, Kiu-
kiuli), was only nine years old when he was placed on the throne under the name
of Kamehameha III. The regency during his minority was held by Kaahumanu
and the old and tried Kaleimoku. Both found work enough in the succeeding
years. It is true that Protestant missionaries had laboured since 1820 with good
results ; but all their efforts were stultified by a faction of morally and physically
corrupt white immigrants, whose numbers grew from year to year. Drunkenness
and prostitution became so rampant that no improvement of the conditions could
be hoped for except by means of legislation. Toward the end of the " twenties " the
contest of the Christian missions for supremacy began on Hawaii. The Protestant
mission was under the protection of the Americans : the Catholic only gained
ground after numerous threats from the French warships under Dupetit-Thouars
(p. 315). In the year 1837 the French extorted a declaration of universal religious
liberty, which put an end to the violent persecutions often suffered by the Catholic
Christians.
The wise Kaleimoku died in 1827, and the death of the energetic queen-regent,
Kaahumanu, followed in 1832. Kamehameha III declared himself of full age in
1833, when he chose another woman, Kinau, for his co-regent, and nominated her
son, Alexander Liholiho, heir to the throne.
The first newspapers printed in the Hawaiian language appeared in 1834.
Churches and schools of every sort were erected in large numbers. At the same
time the first sugar plantations were laid out, and silkworm-breeding introduced
on the part of the English. Soon cotton-growing was added as a new branch of
industry. In October, 1840, the kingdom received its first constitution. It was
drawn up by the American, Eichards, and presented, as Karl Emil Jung expresses
himself, a strange mixture of ancient feudalism and Anglo-American forms. The
ministry consisted entirely of foreigners. Kichards became minister of public
instruction ; Wylie, a Scotch doctor, represented the Foreign Office. The finances
VOL. n— 21
322 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter///
were administered after 1842 by Dr. Judd, under whom the public revenue increased
from forty-one thousand dollars in the year 1842 to two hundred and eighty-four
thousand dollars in 1852.
In spite of religious toleration the disputes between the Protestant and
Catholic clergy continued until the year 1837. They were often exploited by the
French consul in order to put strong pressure on the Hawaiian government in
favour of the Catholic mission. At the same time the English consul took steps
which seemed to point to an annexation of the islands by Great Britain. This
induced the Hawaiian government to obtain a guarantee of the independence of
the kingdom from the United States of America (December, 1842), France (at the
beginning of 1842), and England (July 26, 1843). The action of Lord Paulet,
commander of the frigate " Carys," in taking possession of the island (February 25,
1843), on his own responsibility, was not recognised by the British government.
The constitution of 1840 was changed in 1852, 1864, and on July 6, 1887 ;
with every revision it resembled more and more the usual European constitutional
forms, especially when in 1864 the old institution of the Kuhina nui, or queen
regent was abolished. A privy council, consisting of the ministers and a number
of members nominated by the king, stood next to the sovereign. The cabinet
contained first five, and later four, members ; the parliament was composed of a
house of nobles and a house of representatives. The most important offices
have always been filled with foreigners.
Kamehameha III died in December, 1854. His successor, Alexander Liholiho
(Kamehameha IV, married to Queen Emma), then aged twenty, lost no time in
placing himself on better terms with France, which, in defiance of the indepen-
dence guaranteed in 1843, had overwhelmed the kingdom with difficulties and had
repeatedly humiliated it. A final treaty between the two countries was effected in
1858. On the death of Kamehameha IV in 1864, his elder brother, who had
something of Kamehameha I in him, succeeded to the crown. The first act of
Kamehameha V was to alter the constitution of 1864. In the next year an immi-
gration bureau was instituted as a check on the constant shrinkage in the popula-
tion ; five hundred Chinese were first brought into the country, to be followed by
the first Japanese in 1868. Finally measures were taken to check the leprosy
which had been introduced from China in 1853, and had spread alarmingly.
Kamehameha V died suddenly in 1872, the last of his family.
(7) The Last Period of Hawaii as an Independent State. — For some months
Lunalilo, a kinsman of the Kamehamehas, held the sceptre. After his death, which
occurred on February 3, 1874, Colonel David Kalakaua, born on November 16, 1836,
in Honolulu, was elected king. In spite of his somewhat frivolous nature he was a
far-sighted monarch ; he concluded in 1875 a commercial treaty with the United
States of North America, which secured for his kingdom the most favourable
tariffs and greatly promoted the prosperity of the islands. The cultivation of sugar
and rice, the two principal exports, increased enormously, and indeed there was a
general increase both in exports and in imports. But this revival of trade benefited
only the whites. Want of labourers made it once more necessary to introduce
foreigners. In 1877 the first Portuguese came into the country from the Azores
(in 1884 there were some 10,000) ; at the same time increasing streams of Chinese
and Japanese flooded the land (in 1890 there were counted 15,301 and 17,360).
oSS?""] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 323
The numerical proportion of these ethnically undesirable Mongols to the native
population has, up to the beginning of the twentieth century, steadily increased.
In moving forward to the conquest of the Pacific, the yellow races have found
Hawaii the best point of attack. The growth of economic and political relations
with America during the reign of Kalakaua (1874-1891) has been as rapid and
continuous as the Mongol immigration. As long ago as the winter of 1873-1874,
Pearl Harbour near Honolulu was offered by Lunalilo to the Americans by way of
compensation for commercial concessions. When the treaty of 1875 required to
be renewed in 1887, the United States of North America claimed this place as a
permanent possession ; further, Hawaii was not to venture to conclude treaties with
any other foreign power without their consent, while they claimed the right to
land troops in Hawaii at all times. The influence of the English residents pre-
vented Kalakaua from conceding these humiliating conditions. The refusal of
the American proposals signified, from an economic aspect, the beginning of a
financial crisis, by which, in the opinion of Adolf Marcuse, the Hawaiian dynasty
was ruined.
Kalakaua died on January 20, 1891, at San Francisco. The seventeen years of
his reign had been outwardly rich in " progress." He had a small standing army
at his disposition; Hawaii had obtained lines of railroads and steamships; palaces
and lighthouses had been built, and Honolulu lighted by electricity. Waterworks
and telegraph lines had been constructed, and large stretches of barren country had
been made cultivable by irrigation works. The stage of European civilization
commenced, it must be confessed, with an enormous load of debt, attributable to
the frivolity and the extravagance of the popularly beloved king, who had been
married since 1863 to Kapiolani, but had no issue.
He was succeeded by his sister, Lydia Kamakaeha Liliuokalani, a woman of
fifty-two, who was proclaimed queen on January 29, 1891. Her short reign ended
with the downfall of the Hawaiian monarchy and the annexation of the island by
the United States. Under the dominion of the new American tariff laws, which
secured considerable export bounties to native sugar producers, Hawaii could no
longer compete in the world market; exports rapidly fell off', and the national
prosperity flagged. The foreign section of the population, which was dependent
chiefly on the American trade, found this a reasonable cause for supporting more
boldly the idea of close connection with the United States. The results were dis-
sensions in the government, an over-rapid change in the constitution, which was
intended to weaken the influence of the foreigners, and a threatened coup d'etat
on the queen's part. The end was the deposition of the queen and the procla-
mation of Hawaii as a republic on January 17, 1893.
The efforts of the victorious Americanists of Honolulu toward a close connection
with the United States were at first unsuccessful. The President, Benjamin
Harrison, shortly before the expiration of his term of office which ended on March
4, 1893, advocated annexation in a message to the senate ; but his successor, Grover
Cleveland, was opposed to it. The kingdom thereupon was declared to be changed
into the republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894, and a constitution was framed,
which provided a legislative assembly, a senate, and a house of representatives.
The constitution, however, hardly lasted long enough to become an actuality ; after
McKinley's entrance on office in the spring of 1897 the incorporation with the
Union was effected without any difficulty. The constitutional position of the
324 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
island group was settled on June 14, 1900. Hawaii now forms a territory of
the United States ; the popular element in its government consists of a senate with
fifteen members and a house of representatives with thirty members. The first
election of a representative to Congress took place on November 6, 1900. The
governor, a secretary, and the three judges of the supreme court are nominated by
the president of the United States, the other officials by the governor.
The planting of the stars and stripes in the middle of the Northern Pacific
Ocean is not the first step which American imperialism has taken since 1898
(vide Vol. I, p. 574), but it is one of the most momentous. Tutuila in the Sarnoan
group and Guam in the Marianne Islands are both like feelers which are stretched
out far towards the southwest in the direction of Melanesia and Australia ; the
broad surfaces of the Philippines flank the important international trade route
from Europe to the eastern margin of Asia. In the case of Hawaii a higher stand-
ard must be applied. When the Isthmus of Panama has been cut through, and
the United States really becomes a power in the Pacific, then Hawaii, apart from
its trade, will be indispensable as a strategic base commanding the northern half of
the Pacific. It will be the only intermediate station on the long route from the
Central American canal and from San Francisco to Eastern and Southern Asia.
The annexation of Hawaii by America is a particularly hard blow for Japan, which
had itself been forced to see a similar attempt fail ; nor is it welcomed by Eng-
land, Germany, Eussia, and France.
Only remnants are now left of the native race, and only traces of the nation-
ality of Hawaii. There has been an uninterrupted decline in the native population
since the discoveiy of the islands. In 1778 there were estimated — though the
calculation is certainly excessive — to be 400,000 souls; in 1832 the first actual
census gave 130,313 natives. Four years later there were only 108,579 ; in 1850,
82,203 ; 1860, 71,019 ; 1872, 49,044; 1884, 40,014; 1896, 30,019. At the present
day it is extremely difficult to fix the number of pure natives, on account of the
numerous half-castes, whose numbers were put at 6,186 in 1890, and 8,485 in
1896 ; an increase of more than 33 per cent in six years. At the same time the
full-blooded Hawaiians have diminished by 10 per cent. These make up barely
a fifth of the whole population (in 1900, 154,000 souls); they are therefore less
than the Chinese and Japanese taken separately, and will soon be equalled by the
Portuguese. We cannot make the Europeans entirely responsible for the alarm-
ingly rapid retrogression of the Hawaiians. Besides the diseases introduced by
the former, the original laxity of morals, the drunkenness, various epidemics, and
more than all, the traditional practice of infanticide, have been the chief causes.
In place of the natives there will soon be only Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, and
Americans in Hawaii
(c) Samoa. — More labour has been devoted of recent times to the investigation
of the history of Samoa than to that of all the other Polynesian island groups put
together. The results obtained are hardly proportionate. The long list of proud
genealogies with an infinity of names tells of the vigorous life of the petty States
on the several islands and their divisions ; tradition also records various invasions
from Fiji and Tonga. But we do not obtain the smallest information about the
date of the various events to which the legends refer. The investigations of George
Turner, W. von Biilow, 0. Stu'bel, Augustin Kramer, and others go to prove that
Atiflraliit mill
Oceania
"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 325
the general conditions of Samoa in the periods before its discovery by Europeans
was hardly distinguished from that of other archipelagoes. Its political organisa-
tion and to some degree its stage of social institutions had alone been somewhat
more fully developed. The vendettas and disputes between different influential
families, which are also recorded, are of little importance to the world, although
they have naturally been exaggerated to great events from the perspective of the
Polynesians.
(a) History of Samoa Proper. — The traditions of Samoa do not run back
very far ; we need not assume more than five hundred years for its inhabitants
as a historical nation; how far before that date their immigration must be placed,
is impossible to calculate. The chief event of early history is the subjugation by
the Tongaus, and the Samoan war of liberation which was connected with that
(according to Von Billow, about 1600 A. D., according to Kra'mer about 1200 A. D.).
That was their heroic age. Malie tau, malie toa (" Well fought, brave warriors ")
was, according to legend, the admiring shout of the Tongan king to two young
chiefs, as he pushed off from shore on his return journey. This title, which then
passed to the elder of the two brothers, Savea, has been hereditary in his family
down to the present day.
Samoa is the land of titles. Above the common people stand the nobles,
at the head of whom are the village chief Alii, and the district governor Tui, while
the highest chief (king) bears the title of Tupu. Little inferior to him are the
Tulafale, or orators, whose political position, generally, depends entirely on their
personal abilities. Besides this, titles taken from certain districts or places, in com-
memoration of certain persons or events, are conferred as honourable distinctions,
whose possession is a preliminary condition for the attainment of the political
headship. The most famous of these titles is the above mentioned " Malietoa,"
which the township of Malie, lying nine miles to the west of Apia, has the right to
confer ; a second and hardly less renowned is " Mata'afa," which is bestowed by the
village of Faleata. On the other hand, the claim to the sovereignty rests on the
lawfully conferred right to the four names, Tuiatua and Tuiaana, Gatoaitele and
Tamasoalii, the last two of which are traced to the names of two princesses.
Shortly before Jean Fra^ois Count Lape*rouse landed on Samoa, in 1787, Galu-
malemana, a chief of the Tupua family, had, after fierce civil wars, usurped the
sovereignty of the whole island. On his death, about 1790, violent struggles broke
out between the brothers entitled to the inheritance, from which at first Nofoasaefa
(an ancestor of Tamasese) emerged victoriously. He could not, however, perma-
nently maintain his position, but retired to his ancestral home, Asau, on Savaii,
and once more revived the cannibalism which had almost been forgotten in Samoa.
Galumalemana's posthumous son, J'amafana, who even before his birth had been
called by the dying father prophetically the uniter of the kingdom, finally inherited
the throne. He was succeeded (after 1800) by Mata'afa Filisounu'u, who was at
once involved in serious wars with the Malietoas. The victory rested with the
Malietoa Vaiinupo, an ally of the ruler of Manono, who conquered the country of
Aaana and seized the power on the same day of August in the year 1830 on which
John Williams (Vol. VII, p. 362) set foot on Savaii as the first missionary.
Malietoa assumed in consequence the title " Tupa," which has since been custom-
ary in Samoa. He also was converted to Christianity, and received the name of
Tavita (David); he died on May 11, 1841.
326 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter itr
The two decades after his death were in Samoa once more a war of all against
all. Out of the number of claimants to the throne, Malietoa Laupepa and his
uncle Pe'a, or Talavou, finally held the power jointly for some years. But influenced
by the foreigners in the country, the Samoans in 1868 resolved to put only one
chief at the head of affairs, and to assemble the estates of the realm no longer in
Manono, but in Mulinuu, near Apia. Manono, jealous of its ancient precedence,
declared Pe'a king, and conquered Malietoa Laupepa and his followers. Finally,
in 1873, through the intervention of the foreign consuls, who had been appointed
in the interval, a treaty was concluded, by which the ruling power was put in the
hands of the seven members of the Ta'imua, an upper house, by the side of which
the meetings of the district governors, the Fai Pule, or lower house, still continued.
But in 1875 disorders recommenced, and this time the impulse came from outside.
(/3) The Invasions from Outside. — As far back as 1872 the enterprising New
Zealanders had advocated a British annexation of Samoa, and had offered to equip
a ship for that purpose. At the same time the United States had obtained, on
February 17, 1872, the concession of the harbour Pango-Pango on Tutuila, the best
of the group. The annexation of all Tutuila, proclaimed by a sea captain on his
own responsibility, was not sanctioned in Washington. About the middle of 1873,
the American " Colonel " Steinberger, a German Jew by descent, appeared as a com-
missioner in Samoa, in order 'to study the resources of the island group. This
cunning and ambitious man soon raised himself to the most influential position,
and induced the natives to ask for a protectorate of the United States. Steinberger
himself conveyed the petition to Washington ; he returned on April 1, 1875, to
Samoa, but only with presents and a letter of introduction from the President,
Ulysses S. Grant. Steinberger gave the country a simple constitution, appointed
Malietoa Laupepa king (nominally), while he himself modestly assumed the title
of " Prime Minister ; " he settled the succession, arranged the system of jurisdiction,
and established order and peace throughout the land. But in December, 1875, at
the instance of the jealous missionaries and the English population, he was carried
off by an English man-of-war, after a bloodly battle, and taken to New Zealand.
He died in New York toward the end of the century.
The intentions of the Union on Samoa were now more apparent; in 1887, the
American consul hoisted his flag, and only the energetic remonstrances of Germany
and England hindered the Americans from firmly establishing themselves. In
June of that year the German government concluded a treaty with the Sarnoans,
by which they were prevented from giving any foreign government special privileges
to the prejudice of Germany. On January 17, 1878, the Americans, for their part,
entered into a treaty, to secure friendly relations and promote trade, with Malietoa
Laupepa ; at the same time the harbour of Pango-Pango was definitely given over
to them. On January 24, 1879, Germany was assigned the harbour of Saluafata,
on Upolu, as a naval station ; England also, by a treaty of August 28, 1879, secured
for herself the use of all these waters, and the right to choose a coaling station.
On September 2, by a treaty between Germany, England, the Union, and Malietoa,
the district of Apia was declared neutral territory, and placed under a municipal
council to be appointed by the three powers in turn. Finally, on December 23,
on board the German ship " Bismarck," Malietoa Talavou (Pe'a) was elected, by
numerous chiefs, to the dignity of king for life, with Laupepa as regent.
Anllmlui and'
Oceimi i
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
327
Since the middle of the " fifties " the Hamburg merchant house of Johann Cesar
Godeffroy and Son had made the South Sea the chief sphere of its enterprises, and,
a decade and a half later, had monopolised the trade with the central and eastern
group of islands ; it had also acquired large estates on the Carolines and the three
large Samoaii islands, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila. Misfortunes on the stock
exchange placed the firm, toward the end of the "seventies," in so precarious a
position that, in view of the Anglo-Australian movement to occupy all the un-
appropriated South Sea Islands, Prince Bismarck abandoned his colonial policy of
inaction, and, at th^beginning of 1880, introduced the " Samoau proposition," by
which the einpire^as to interfere and undertake to guarantee the small tribute
due from the Gofleffroys. But the German Keichstag rejected the proposition on
the third reading on April 29, 1880 ; " where difficult duties can only be discharged
by the resources of a nation, there our German history shows merely a list of wasted
opportunities " (Oskar Peschel).
(7) Samoa and the Powers. — King Malietoa Talavou died on November 8,
1880. His nephew, Malietoa Laupepa, was totally unable to check the renewed
outbreak of civil war among the natives; in fact, at the beginning of 1886 one
party chose, at the advice of Eugen Brandeis, the chief Tamasese as king. He
found support from the Germans, because Laupepa, in November, 1885, had secretly
offered the sovereignty to England. Continued injury to German interests, and
insults and outrages inflicted by Laupepa's adherents on German civil servants,
led, in August, 1887, to Laupepa being arrested by German marines, and taken
first to the Cameroons and then to the Marshall Islands.
Tamasese's rule was also brief. On September 9, 1888, the adherents of
Malietoa Laupepa proclaimed the renowned Mataafa king, and defeated Tamasese.
When his people ventured on outrages against the Germans, the two German
warships lying off Apia, at the request of the German consul, Knappe, landed
their crews; but through treachery they fell into an ambush on December 18,
and were almost annihilated. Stronger German detachments were required
before the rebels were repulsed. In addition to this, a hurricane, on March 19,
1889, wrecked the two German gunboats, "Eber" and "Adler," in the harbour
of Apia, and ninety-five brave sailors lost their lives. The English ship, H.M.S.
" Calliope," escaped by steaming out, and the captain, Kane, displayed the greatest
skill and seamanship. The Americans suffered nearly as heavily as the Germans.
A settlement of Samoan affairs was the result of the conference held in
Berlin during the summer of 1889, to which Germany, England, and the United
States sent representatives. In the final protocol of June 14 the island group was
declared independent and neutral under the joint protection of the three powers.
Tamasese and Mataafa were deposed, and Malietoa Laupepa, who had been brought
back to Samoa in late autumn, was reinstated on the throne. Mataafa, however,
was soon re-elected king by his party ; but in 1893 was conquered on Manono and
banished by the powers who signed the treaty. Tamasese the Younger took his
place, and the civil war continued. Malietoa Laupepa then died on August 22,
1898. Only two candidates for the succession were seriously to be considered, —
the banished but popular Mataafa, and Tanu Mafili, the son of Laupepa, aged six-
teen, a protege of the English mission, and thus of the English and American
governments. Tamasese the Younger was kept by the English in reserve merely
as a substitute for Tanu.
328 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
The subject of the drama, which was unfolded in the winter of 1898-1899 in
the distant South Sea archipelago, was not so much the welfare of the few Samoans
or the possession of the small islands as far weightier conflicting interests. No
words need be wasted about the causes of the intense Anglo-Australian longing
for the islands. The United States of North America, who had obtained Hawaii
and the Philippines immediately before this, thus possessed magnificent strategic
and commercial bases for the northern part of the Pacific, but not for the south.
The interests of Germany, finally, were based on economics. In production and
trade it considerably surpassed both parties ; and it was a point of honour with the
German government not to let the prize which had once been grasped escape in
the end from their fingers.
The Samoans chose Mataafa by an overwhelming majority. At the same
time the American Chief Justice Chambers, on December 21, declared that the
young Tanu was elected with his approval, and that Mataafa could not come into
the question, since he was excluded by the Berlin protocol, although a clause to
that effect proposed by Prince Bismarck had not been adopted in the final version.
The remonstrances of the German consul, Eose, and the German municipal coun-
cillor, Dr. Kaffel, were disregarded. Mataafa then took the matter into his own
hands and drove the supporters of Tanu out of Apia down to the sea and the
ships of the allied powers. After repeated bombardments of the coast villages by
the British and American war vessels in the second half of March, a joint com-
mittee of inquiry was instituted in the spring of 1899 at the suggestion of Ger-
many, and this transferred in July the rights of the abolished monarchy temporarily
to the consuls of the three powers. In the treaty of London of November 14
Germany and England came to an agreement, and in the Washington protocol of
December 2 the United States also gave their assent.
Great Britain under this treaty entirely renounced all claim to the Samoan
Islands. By the repeal of the Samoa act, Upolu and Savaii, with the adjacent
small islands, became the absolute property of Germany, while Tutuila and the
other Samoan Islands east of 171° W. longitude fell to the United States. Germany
in return renounced her claims to the Tonga Islands and Savage Island in favour
of England, and ceded to the same power the two Solomon Islands, Choiseul and
Isabel. The German Reichstag approved the treaty on February 13, 1900. On
March 1 the newly nominated German governor, Solf, took formal possession of
the islands. On August 14, finally, the wisely conceded self-government of the
natives came into force again. The royal dignity alone was abolished. Mataafa
bore, instead of the former title of Tupu, that of a Alii Sili, or high chief.
(d) Tonga. — Of the islands in the central part of Oceania, the Tonga archi-
pelago alone, besides Fiji and Samoa, has a noteworthy history. We know little
of its course before the arrival of James Cook, with exception of the social condi-
tions. At the head of the constitution stood the Tuitonga, monarch and god at
once, with absolute power over persons and property. Almost equal to him in
reputation and sanctity was the Tui Ardeo, according to Meinicke the descendant
of a dethroned royal family, which had still retained a special position. The Tui-
tonga had to show peculiar honours to the Tui Ardeo on different occasions. The
king and his family composed the first class (" Hau ") of the nobility. The second
(the " Eiki," or " Egi," who also bore the title Tui, or lord) furnished the highest
A tittrfilia and ~j
Oceania
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
32D
officials in the kingdom and the district governors, and was appointed by the king,
although the dignity was hereditary. The first of the Eiki was in pre-European
times the Tui Hatakalawa, the minister of the interior; in Mariner's time (1810)
he came in precedence after the Tui Kanakabolo, or war minister. Since in the
nineteenth century the Tuitonga was excluded from all share in the wars, the war
minister easily attained to greater influence than the monarch himself; indeed,
the Tui Kanakabolo has been taken by more than one traveller for the Tuitonga.
Among the Eiki titles, those of the Ata, the highest commander in war, and of the
Lavaka, the minister of public instruction, were also of importance. The last class
of nobility (Matabule) furnished councillors and servants of the Eiki and the
Tuitonga, district governors, public teachers, and representatives of the most hon-
ourable crafts, such as shipbuilding and the making of weapons. The three classes
of nobility were the sole possessors of the soil, as well as of the power of Taboo.
The common people had no share in either ; it only possessed its personal freedom,
and supported itself merely by the cultivation of the lands of the nobles, by handi-
crafts, or by fishing. Among handicrafts those requiring superior skill were reserved
for the higher class of the commons, the Mua^ while agriculture and the profession
of cooking were assigned to the lower class, or Tua.
Cook in 1773 and 1777 found the glory of the old dynasty, Fatafehi (Fatafahi),
already eclipsed by the power of the Tupo nobles, who had secured all the im-
portant offices of State. According to Meinicke, the Tuitonga might apparently
only take their wives from the family of Tupo. Toward the end of the eighteenth
century this concentration of power had increased to the extent of driving out the
Tuitonga. This roused other Eiki families to imitate the example of the Tupo.
The regents of Hapai and Vavau first revolted; those of Tongatabu followed.
After long struggles the victory rested with Finau, the Eiki of Hapai, although he
could no longer force the whole archipelago to obey his rule. At the beginning of
the nineteenth century the Finau shifted the political centre of gravity to Vavau.
In 1830 Taufaahau, the lord of Hapai, and Tubo, the Eiki of Tongatabu, adopted
Christianity. When the Finau died out in 1833, Vavau fell to the former. In
this way Taufaahau governed over the same kingdom as Finau I thirty years
earlier. In 1845 Tubo, or, as he was called after his conversion, Josiah of Tonga-
tabu, died also. Taufaahau, as King George Tubou I, now united the whole archi-
pelago into one kingdom. This State bore from the first the stamp of European
influence. The Wesleyan mission had soon extended its activity to political and
social matters. In 1839 George issued an edict for Hapai and Vavau, which estab-
lished a court of justice of four members and a written code, and abolished the old
customs, according to which each chief administered justice at his own discretion.
The legislation of 1862 finally raised the existing serfs to the position of free
farmers of the soil, from which they could not be ousted so long as they paid their
rent. The taxes (six dollars yearly) were uniformly imposed on all male inhabit-
ants over sixteen years of age.
After 1838 on Tonga also there were quarrels between the Catholic and Pro-
testant missions. In December, 1841, threats of a French warship caused the
ruler of Tongatabu to seek an English protectorate, which was granted him. The
Catholic missionaries, however, obtained admission. Their success in the religious
field was never important; but in the political field they had even in 1847 so
great an influence over Tongatabu, that the chiefs of that part commenced an oppo-
330 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
sition to the rule of George I, which was only repressed in 1852 by the storming
of the fortresses Houma and Bea, defended by French missionaries. Although
the chiefs were reinstated in their former posts, and the missionaries received no
injury to life or property, France felt herself aggrieved, and extorted in 1858 an
official permission of the Catholic teaching, and put various Catholic chiefs in the
place of Protestants.
King George, notwithstanding, found time to make expeditions to other coun-
tries. The Tougans had at all times, owing to their great nautical skill, under-
taken campaigns against Samoa and Nuka Hiwa, and had caused panic especially
in the neighbouring archipelagoes. The people of Fiji had thus a strong tinge of
the Polynesian in them. A few years after Cook's second visit (1777), a Tongau
condottiere played a great part in the Fijian disorders. In 1854 King George
appeared with a large fleet, avowedly to support Thakombau in his difficulties
(p. 313). This expedition gave the Tongans subsequently a pretext for claiming
large compensation, which finally drove Thakombau into the arms of England.
George Tubou I completed the internal reforms of his island kingdom by the
constitution of November 4, 1875. This was partly the creation of the king him-
self, partly that of his old and loyal councillor, the missionary Shirley Baker. Its
contents kept closely to English forms ; in its ultimate shape, as settled by the
chambers and printed in the English language in 1877, it provided for a legislative
assembly, which met every two years. Half of its members belonged to the hered-
itary nobility and were nominated by the king ; the rest were elected by the
people. The executive power lay in the hands of a ministry of four, who, together
with the governors of the four provinces and the higher law officers, composed the
cabinet. The administration of justice was put on an independent footing, and
comprised a supreme court, jury courts, and police courts. Education was super-
intended by the missionaries, who had erected well-attended schools on all the
islands. An industrial school and a seminary, which was called Tubou College in
honour of the king, were founded. The prohibition against the sale of land to
foreigners, which was inserted in the constitution at Baker's advice (" the Tongans
are not to be driven into the sea "), was important for the economic future of the
Tongans ; even leases of land were only allowed after notice had been given to
the government.
In view of the increased interest which the European powers in 'the "seven-
ties " took in the South Sea Islands, Tonga with its favourable situation could not
permanently be neglected. King George and his chancellor, Baker, were on terms
of open friendship with Germany. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War
they assured King William of their absolute neutrality. On November 1, 1876,
this " good-feeling " took the form of a commercial treaty, establishing friendly
relations with the German Empire, according to which the harbour of Taulanga
on Vavau was ceded as a coaling station. The accompanying request of George
Tubou for a protectorate was naturally declined by Germany. On November 29,
1879, Tonga concluded a similar treaty of amity with England. By an agreement
of April 6, 1886, Germany and England decided that Tonga should remain neutral
territory. On August 1, 1888, a treaty was made with the United States.
King George Tubou I, died on February 18, 1893, at his capital, Nukualofa,
aged ninety-five years. He was succeeded by his great-grandson, George Tubou II,
a timid youth of nineteen. Down to the time of his accession German trade and
""] HISTORY OF THE WORIiD 331
influence had outstripped English. But when the prime s;&ninister Baker had
fallen a victim to English intrigues, and the service of the North German Lloyd to
Tonga and Samoa, under subsidy from the empire, had been discontinued, the Eng-
lish occupied the vacant position. When, in March, 1899, the German warship
" Falke " appeared off Tongatabu, nominally with orders to occupy the harbour of
Taulanga until Tongan debtors had paid the sum due of SI 00,000 (according to
Moritz Schaiiz merely with orders to induce the king to open the Tougan courts
to the recovery of debts to foreigners), an English warship from the Australian
station sailed in on April 10, paid George II $125,000 on the sole condition that
the king made no concessions whatever of landed rights to any foreign power ; in
return for this, England, renewed her guarantee of independence for Tonga. Since
that time the group of islands has only been valuable to Germany as the object of
an exchange; in the treaty of November 8, 1899, she abandoned all claims in
exchange for half Samoa (p. 321). Thus Tonga and the adjoining Niue (Savage
Island) were placed, in spite of the protest of King George II, under a British pro-
tectorate on May 19, 1900.
With the Tongan kingdom, the last of the native States of Oceania disappeared.
It is true that the constitution, formulated on a European model, was in many
details unadapted to the Polynesian nature. But Tonga preserved many other
points which recalled the old nationality. These relics of an indigenous develop-
ment are fated soon to die away.
(e) New Zealand. — (a) The Position and Physical Features of New Zealand. —
New Zealand, which from weighty considerations is better treated here than in
connection with Australia, occupies a geographical position which reminds one
strongly of that of the neighbouring continent. To the south and east of New
Zealand, the ocean is quite free from any considerable islands; only toward
the north and west are relations possible with the habitable world : on the one
side with Australia and Tasmania, on the other with New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga,
and the Cook Islands. New Zealand is so situated as regards all these countries
that the lines of communication with it are almost radii of a circle, a fact impor-
tant geographically and historically. It was merely a consequence of the inferior
seamanship of their inhabitants that the original immigration to New Zealand did
not take place from Australia, New Caledonia, and Fiji.
New Zealand lies about twelve hundred and fifty miles from the countries just
mentioned. This distance, in spite of their advanced nautical skill, was too far for
the navigation of the Polynesians, and thus must have prevented any permanent
and systematic expansion of the Maoris ; their naval expeditions did not go beyond
one or two voyages to the Hawaiki of legend (p. 307), and the occupation of the
neighbouring Chatham Islands (Warekauri), which wras effected in 1834 with
the help of a European captain. The case was otherwise for the New Zealand of
the Europeans. Two or three generations ago its proximity to Australia and Tas-
mania enabled a thorough and rapid scheme of colonisation to be carried out
thence ; at the present day when it feels itself strong in the number of its inhabi-
tants and its resources, it lies far enough off to be able to entertain the idea of an
independent national existence by the side of the Australian commonwealth. A
feeling in favour of independence was discernible as early as 1860, or 1870, hardly
a generation after the beginning of the colonisation proper. The interference
332 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter m
of New Zealand in.Samoan affairs in the year 1872 (p. 326), was followed by the
annexation of the ;Kermadec Isles to New Zealand, in 1887, and that of the Cook
Islands and Manihikis in 1900 ; Fiji appears nearing the same destiny now (p. 312).
The influential circles of New Zealand are universally of opinion that all the island
groups of Polynesia belong to it as naturally as, according to the idea of the
Australians, the Western Pacific Ocean falls within their magic circle. Each of the
two countries feels itself a leading power in the southern hemisphere ; hence
the grandiose phrase, " the position to which this land is entitled in the concert
of the powers" used in 1900 by Eichard Seddon, the prime minister of New
Zealand.
Although the population of New Zealand, according to the census of 1900,
amounted to little more than that of Glasgow (eight hundred thousand souls), it
would be unwise to ignore those pretensions. Apart from their advantageous posi-
tion for the command of the Southern Pacific Ocean, the two islands possess a,
coastline so greatly indented that it surpasses Italy itself in the number of IKIVS.
Besides this, it now produces gold and coal in considerable quantities, while copper,
silver, iron-ore, sulphur, platinum, and antimony are also to be found plentifully.
New Zealand, lying entirely within the temperate zone, possesses a further
advantage in its climate, which, judging by the physical and intellectual qualities
of the Maoris, must be credited with a considerable power of modifying racial
types for the better, unless it be indeed the case, as is sometimes asserted, that it
has a bad effect on the physique of Europeans (p. 241). Agriculture in New Zea-
land, as in Australia, is diminishing ; although the climate is temperate, there are
cold nights in summer, which makes the produce of the harvests very variable.
Nevertheless there are more than seven hundred thousand acres of land under cul-
tivation at present; according to rough calculations twenty-six million acres,
(nearly forty thousand square miles), or two-fifths of the entire surface, are suitable
for agriculture, though at present more than two-thirds of the country is covered
with forests. The backbone of the industries of New Zealand, as of Tasmania,
which in many respects enjoys the same climatic conditions, is the breeding of
cattle and sheep. This industry is steadily growing, as cattle can remain out in
the open and find sufficient food the whole year through. It is owing to this
advantage that New Zealand has outstripped Australia, which lies several days"
voyage nearer the Old World, in the export of frozen meat. Of the exports for the
year 1899, amounting nearly to £12,000,000, not less than £8,000,000 came from
animal products ; minerals produced £1,600,000, agriculture only £900,000.
(yS) The History of the Maoris to the Year 1839. — The original inhabitants
of New Zealand, the Maoris, were only benefited by the advantages of their coun-
try to a certain degree ; their physique indeed was improved there ; but industrially
they were not able to profit by the green fields or the splendid forests of Kauri
pine. They only made use of the native fauna, so long as there were creatures
to hunt and eat ; even yet the heroic ballads of the Maoris tell of conflicts with
the gigantic moa, the first species of the fauna, which had lived on for thousands-
of years unmolested, to fall a victim to the intrusion of man.
The first Maoris immigrated into the two islands, then uninhabited, fully five
hundred years ago; in the course of time batches of fresh immigrants followed
them, the last perhaps in the eighteenth century. The point from which the
POLYNESIAN ANTIi
IES AND CARVINGS
KXl'LAXATION OF Till- POLYNESIAN" A\TK>riTIKS AND CARV-
DKl'KTKI) ON TIM-: oTHKI! SIDK OK THE PAGE
Fig. 1. Maori coffin, under side. Some three generations older than Cook, dating therefore
from the second halt' of the seventeenth century. Witli two richly tattooed human figures, male
and female. The hole in the centre was used to place the coilin on a wooden pole rising higher
than a man's head from the ground.
(From the original in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin.)
Fig. 2. Pou Pou, carved under-side of a wall-pillar in tin- great meeting-house of Ohinemutu.
The richly tattooed figure is supposed to represent Tam;i-te-Kapua, the great ancestor of the Arawa,
presumably walking on stilts.
(From the original at Ohiiieniutu in New Zealand.)
Figs. 3 a and b. Large sculpture in basaltic lava, found on the island of Oahu, in the Hawaiian
group. The figure represents an old-time European with wig, pig-tail, and ruff, presumably
one of the old, otherwise unknown Spanish navigators, who had "discovered" Hawaii long
before Cook.
(From the original in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin.)
Fig. 4. Korupe. Lintel from an old house in New Zealand. From Cook's collection, but
even then ancient, probably belonging to the seventeenth century, perhaps older. One of the
most valuable and beautiful works of the old Maori art. The mythological meaning of the three
richly tattooed figures is obscure.
(From the original in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin.)
Figs. 5 a and b. Carved chest from New Zealand, for keeping feather ornaments. To the
right (5 a) one side of the chest, to the left (5 b) the lid let into the other. From Cook's collec-
tion ; probably belonging to the seventeenth century.
(From the original in the Imperial Museum at Berlin.)
Fig. G. Carving from New Zealand, representing two tattooed men, who are making fire
by rubbing.
(From the original in the Ethnological Museum at Vienna.)
Fig. 7. The central portion of a large richly decorated transverse board from the front of a
pataka or storehouse. The scene, carved almost in a heraldic style, has not yet been explained;
it is siippused to refer to the legend of the creation. Demons with the heads of birds and lizards
play an important part in the ancient art of New Zealand. The small triangular notches,
conspicuous features in parts of this carving, are called tara-tara o kai. The pataka, to which
this board belonged, was built in 1820 by the chieftain Ilaere Huka, and stood between Rotorua
and Lake Kotoiti. It now stands in the museum at Auckland.
(After a copy by Hamilton.)
Fig. 8. A board from the inside of a large Maori meeting-house, with the. representation of a
Mc-lusina-like demon, taniwha, or mara-kihau, having a tube-like tongue, by which these demons
.Me to suck in and wreck ships. Similar objects are still to be found in liuatahuna and in
Te Kuiti (NVw /.-aland).
(From the original hi tlie Museum of Honolulu.)
*££"**} HISTORY OF THE WORLD 333
migration started was Hawaiki, the theme of so many legends, the Savaii of the
Samoan Islands ; the intermediate station, and for some Maoris the actual starting
point, was Karotonga (cf. above, p. 306). According to the legend the chief
Ngalme, with eight hundred vassals in twelve ships, whose names are still kept
sacred, landed in Plenty Bay on the North Island ; when the English began to
colonise, the population was estimated at one hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand souls. Such an increase in a comparatively short time could, so Kobert
von Lendenfeld thinks, only be the result of periods of undisturbed tranquillity.
The beasts and birds, above all the numerous gigantic species of moa, reaching
thirteen feet in height, did not enjoy this peace ; they soon fell, to the last one,
under the spears and clubs of the immigrants. The inhabitants, accustomed to
a flesh diet and with ever increasing numbers, looked for a substitute and were
driven in desperation to cannibalism. With this momentous step, the first crisis
in the history of the Maoris, the prosperous time of peace was irrevocably past ;
the ensuing period was one of continuous murder and slaughter, tribe against tribe,
man against man.
In the centuries immediately after the first immigration all evidence points to
the existence of large States, which occasionally were subject to one common head.
There seems also to have been a religious centre. This was the period of the
national prosperity of the Maoris, when their workmanship also attained its highest
perfection (see the accompanying plate, " Polynesian Antiquities and Carvings ").
Europeans had only a passing knowledge of them in this advanced stage ; Abel
Tasman alone saw in 1642 large and splendid double canoes in use among them ;
such canoes the Maoris of the eighteenth century were no longer able to build.
The decadence was universal. The ancient kingdoms broke up into small com-
munities of bold incendiaries and robbers, who recognised no political centre, but
were engaged in fierce feuds one against another. The belief in the old gods gave
way to a superstitious belief in guardian spirits, charms, and countercharms. The
national character, always inclined to pride and tyranny, ended by becoming more
and more bloodthirsty, revengeful, and cruel.
The intercourse of the Maoris with the Europeans at the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth century only rendered the incessant civil wars
more fierce by the introduction of firearms. In the year 1820 the chief Hongi
(Shongi), accompanied by the missionary Kendall, visited England, and was pre-
sented to King George IV, who received him with marked attention and showered
presents upon him. Having soon learnt the political condition of Europe, and
dazzled by the still brilliant reputation of the victorious career of Napoleon I, he
exchanged his presents in Sydney for weapons and ammunition, armed his tribe,
and filled the North Island until 1828 with all the horrors of war. Thousands of
Maoris were shot or made slaves, and hundreds eaten. Hongi, having neglected
to wear in some battle in 1827 the cuirass which the king of England had given
him, received a shot in the lungs, from the effects of which he died fifteen
months afterward.
The diminution of the native population owing to such protracted wars was an
advantage to the whites already settled in the country. Ever since the year 1800,
there had been a large number of "pioneers of culture," runaway sailors, escaped
convicts from New South Wales, and other adventurers. Their relations with the
Maoris had at first been restricted to a barter of New Zealand flax and timber for
HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter m
rum, iron, and other European products ; later a trade in tattooed Maori heads sprang
up, to which, even at the present day, European and American museums testify.
In 1814 the Anglican mission under Samuel Marsden began its labours in the
Bay of Islands, and soon obtained such an influence among the natives that it
seemed in 1820 as if the North Island would develop into a Christian Maori State.
The horrors launched on the island by Hongi only temporarily stopped this move-
ment ; after his death the work of conversion not only proceeded rapidly, but the
idea of a Maori State under Anglican guidance was approaching its realisation.
There was at that time in England little inclination to organise a state colonisation
of New Zealand ; Australia lay nearer and had a less dangerous population. But
when in 1831 a French warship anchored in the Bay of Islands, the missionaries
induced thirteen leading chiefs of that district to petition King William IV for
protection for New Zealand. The government, consented, and nominated in 1833
James Busby, a colonist from New South Wales, as resident, and entrusted him
with a jurisdiction over the British settlers which was backed up by no force at
all. Busby's first act was to grant a national flag to New Zealand, which was
officially recognised by England toward the end of 1834. The missionaries thus
obtained the object for which they had so perseveringly tried, a Maori State appar-
ently self-governing, but in reality dependent on them. At Busby's instigation
this State, represented by thirty-five chiefs of the north, was called after the
autumn of 1835 the " United Tribes of New Zealand." At the same time the chiefs
declared that they would annually hold an assembly, and there pass the necessary
laws. Busby himself wished to conduct the government with the help of a council
consisting of natives, for which, after a definite interval, representatives were to
be elected. The preliminary costs of this new constitution should, he proposed,
be defrayed by England, which was to be petitioned not only for a loan, but also
for the further protection of the whole scheme.
Busby's plan, which was ridiculed by all who were acquainted with the con-
ditions of New Zealand, had been suggested by another fantastic undertaking, that
of Baron Thierry. This adventurer had commissioned Kendall, the missionary, to
obtain large tracts of land for him in New Zealand, and Kendall had bought in
1822 forty thousand acres on the Hokianga from three chiefs for thirty-six hatchets.
But Thierry, without entering on his property, roamed about in South America, in
order to become the " sovereign " of some people, even if it were the smallest Indian
tribe. Later he pursued the same aims on the South Sea Islands, and was finally
chosen by the island of Nukahiwa in the Marquesas to its head. As " sovereign
chief in New Zealand and king of Nukahiwa " he announced to the British resident
in North New Zealand his speedy arrival from Tahiti (1835). The kings of Great
Britain and France, he declared, as well as the president of the United States, had
consented to the founding of an independent State on Hokianga Bay, and he
was only waiting for the arrival of a suitably equipped warship sent from Panama
to sail to the Bay of Islands.
Busby's counter-measure was the founding of the United Tribes of New Zealand.
Strange -to relate, this step was taken seriously in England (though not in Aus-
tralia), and every protection guaranteed to the chiefs. There was a strictly correct
exchange of notes between Thierry and Busby, until Thierry, at the close of 1837,
accompanied by ninety-three European adventurers, appeared in person <>n the
North Island. At first amicably received by some of the chiefs, he soon perceived
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
that the English settlers as well as the missionaries were working against him.
When it appeared that his announcement that hundreds of his subjects would soon
follow him was idle talk, Thierry became the laughing stock of whites and Maoris,
was deserted by every one, and thenceforward eked out a scanty existence as
a pauper.
(7) The Treaty of Waitangi. — Thierry's French name-, the founding of the
" Compagnie Nanto-Bordelaise," and the " Compagnie Francaise de la Nouvelle
Zelande," for the colonisation of the east side of the South Island, finally the
settlement of the French missionary, Pompallier (Pomparlier), in New Zealand, —
all this gradually aroused a keen interest in the two islands among private circles
in England. James Cook, who had explored the islands in 1769-1770, 1773-1774,
and 1777, had always advocated an occupation of the country, and even Benjamin
Franklin had proposed to found a company for the colonisation of New Zealand ;
both without results. In 1825, it is true that a "New Zealand Company" was
formed, and some emigrants were sent to New Zealand.
The behaviour of the natives, however, so alarmed the newcomers that, with the
exception of the four most stout-hearted, who remained in the country, all returned to
Australia or England. The attempt, which had swallowed up ten thousand pounds,
was a failure. In 1837 the idea of colonisation was again taken up by Edward
Gibbon Wakefield, the founder of the colony of South Australia (p. 283), Lord Dur-
ham, the leader of the attempt of 1825, and other representatives of the British
parliament ; but since the " Association for the Colonisation of New Zealand " could
not break down the opposition, fostered by the missionary societies, of the govern-
ment and of the two houses of parliament, it was broken up. At the end of 1838
the " New Zealand Land Company," also founded by Wakefield and Lord Durham,
took its place. This wished to acquire land from the Maoris, in order to resell it
to English emigrants. The price was to be so adjusted that not only a surplus
should be produced for the construction of roads, schools, and churches, but also
an adequate profit for the shareholders. When the company, on June 1, 1839,
publicly put up to auction one hundred and ten thousand acres of New Zealand
land, so many bidders were forthcoming that very soon one hundred thousand
pounds poured into their coffers.
In view of the fact that a vigorous colonisation of New Zealand was unavoid-
able, the colonial minister, the Marquis of Normanby, now tried to anticipate the
New Zealand Land Company and to secure for the government the expected profits.
Under the influence of the Wakefield agitators, the predecessor of Normanby in
office, Lord Glenelg, had planned the appointment of a British consul to New
Zealand and the annexation of districts already occupied by whites under the gov-
ernment of New South Wales. On June 15, 1839, Captain Hobson was nominated
by Normanby consul for New Zealand, with a commission to induce the natives to
recognise the sovereignty of the queen of England. He was to administer the
island group as belonging to New South Wales, in the capacity of a deputy gov-
ernor. In order to nip the plans of the company in the bud, Hobson was further
instructed to bind the Maori chiefs to sell land exclusively to the crown, and to
suppress the speculation in land which was raging in New Zealand (of. p. 265), by
requiring that all purchases of land effected by British subjects should be investi-
gated by a special committee.
336 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter m
But the government came forward too late with their measures. An expedition
of the New Zealand Land Company, under the guidance of a brother of Wakefield,
had already landed in Queen Charlotte's Sound on August 16, 1839, had obtained
an immense territory from the natives for a few articles of merchandise, in spite of
all the efforts of the missionaries, and had lost no time in founding the town of
Wellington on Port Nicholson. The capital of the " Britain of the South Sea "
was thus created. One out of every eleven acres of the purchased land was to
remain reserved for the natives as an inviolable possession.
Since also the " Compaguie Nanto-Bordelaise " was well on its way to secure a
strong footing in New Zealand, Hobson, who had landed on the North Island on
January 29, 1840, concluded, with the support of the missionaries, who saw in a
crown colony the lesser evil, the treaty of Waitangi with a number of the more
important chiefs, in which they absolutely and forever resigned the sovereignty of
their land to the crown of England. The crown in return guaranteed to the Maoris
the royal protection, all the privileges of British subjects, and all their rights to
land and property, but reserved the right of pre-emption of every district which
the natives should be willing to sell. The few dozens who first signed were soon
joined by other chiefs, so that the number of signatures shortly before the middle
of the year 1840 reached five hundred and twelve. In June, therefore, the British
sovereignty could also be proclaimed over the South Island and Stewart Island " on
the basis of the right of Cook's discovery." On September 19 Hobson hoisted the
British flag in Auckland. Finally, on November 6, 1840, New Zealand was declared
a crown colony. Hobson was nominated governor, and Auckland became temporarily
the seat of government.
The treaty of Waitangi is in various respects an event of historical importance.
For the first time a European nation laid down the fundamental principle that the
natives even of an uncultivated country have full possessory rights over their own
land. We may contrast with this the conduct adopted by the government and the
settlers toward the neighbouring Australians and Tasmanians ! Now, for the first
time, as Theodor Waitz emphasises, " savages " were officially put on a level with
colonists, that is to say, were treated as men.
The treaty is also important politically. England, by firmly establishing herself
in front of the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean, secured a commanding position
in the entire Central and Southern Oceanic world. This was an exceptionally hard
blow for France, since, after the total failure of her Australian and Tasmanian
schemes of colonisation, there was no other considerable tract of territory to be
found which could serve as a strong base within her widely distributed colonial
empire in the South Pacific. The French ships, which arrived off New Zealand in
July, 1840, were compelled to return without having effected their purpose.
Who will prove victorious in the fight for the supremacy in the Pacific Ocean ?
This is a difficult question. At the present day the Pacific is a stage trodden by
many actors ; in a possibly not distant future it will become the theatre of war for
the United States, Eussia, and England, which latter has in reality been most
closely identified with the Pacific Ocean (cf. Vol. I, p. 599). In any case New
/••;tlaud will possess great value, owing to its geographical position. Strategically
it forms a splendid flanking outpost for Australia which is otherwise exposed
defenceless to every attack from north or east ; and as far as industries go, it is
at least as well endowed as her larger neighbour. Inferiority of size is compen-
sated bv more favourable climatic conditions.
l""d] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 337
(8) The Fortunes of the Maoris from 1840 to the Present Day. — The treaty
of Waitangi soon involved momentous consequences for the colony itself. The
English government, which had never recognised the New Zealand Land Com-
pany, reduced its claims (20,000,000 of the 46,000,000 acres of land "bought"
by Europeans) first to 997,000, and after a more exact investigation (1843) to
282,000 acres. To the Englishmen who claimed the remaining 26,000,000 acres,
only 100,000 were awarded; to the London mission only 66,000 instead of
216,000 acres. The rest in all cases, instead of being given back to the natives,
was declared to be crown land and bought by the government. From that time the
natives had quite a different notion of the value of their land, which they had
hitherto unsuspectingly sold for muskets, rum, tobacco, blankets, and toys. They
began more and more constantly to dispute the old bargains, first by complaints
and protests, then by blows, and finally by war and murder. After the Maoris had
murdered several Europeans in 1843 and repeatedly torn down the English flag,
England was obliged to consider herself at war with the islanders. The successor
of Hobson (d. 1842) was Robert Fitzroy, known as the commander of the " Beagle,"
which had carried Charles Darwin on his voyage round the world. Fitzroy was,
however, incompetent for his post, and by all sorts of concessions (remission of
entrance-tolls, and restitution of land sold by the Maoris to the immigrants) he
prompted the natives to make renewed demands. His measures with this view
rapidly emptied the colonial coffers. The New Zealand Land Company, in con-
sequence of the perpetual disturbances, also fell into difficulties and temporarily
suspended its operations. Besides this, the English forces, from want of artillery,
did very little against the brave Maori warriors.
In November, 1845, George Grey, who had won his spurs as the first governor
of South Australia (p. 285), arrived in New Zealand. Since the attempt to quiet
the insurgents by peaceful methods was unsuccessful, the governor prohibited the
importation of arms and ammunition, and rapidly defeated the chiefs Heki and
Kawiri. He was able to conclude peace by the end of January, 1846. Isolated
subsequent outbreaks were suppressed with equal promptness. Grey's next object
was to prevent the recurrence of civil wars by a system of suitable reforms.
Besides the above-mentioned reduction of the landed property of the missions, he
put an officer into the post of native secretary, which had been hitherto adminis-
tered by a missionary, and settled the land question in the interests of the natives.
The new constitution, recommended by the British government, which gave the
colony complete self-government, appeared premature to him, and was not therefore
put into force ; he contented himself with dividing the colony into two provinces.
In order to revive immigration, which had almost ceased, steps were taken to
advance to the New Zealand Land Company in 1846 and 1847 a sum of £236,000
free of interest, and the crown lands of the district of New Munster were
assigned to it until July, 1850. The minimum price for an acre was fixed at
£1 sterling. With its co-operation the Free Church of Scotland founded the
colony of Otago on the South Island in 1847, and the Church of England Canter-
bury in 1849. These were the last acts of the company, whose directors were
compelled to suspend the business finally in 1850 from want of funds; a fortunate
turn for the development of the colony of New Zealand, which had only suffered
from the juxtaposition of the company and government. For this reason the
government remitted the payment by the company of the sum advanced, and
VOL. II — 22
338 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapteriii
assigned to the shareholders in 1852 £268,000 sterling as compensation for their
lauded rights.
George Grey's term of office ended on December 31, 1853 ; after a short fur-
lough at home he was transferred to Cape Colony (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 507). But,
before leaving, he had obtained for the two islands that same privilege of self-
government which had been granted by the mother country to the Australian
colonies (p. 286) ; that is, a responsible government (1852). The constitution,
which was largely due to Grey himself, provided for six provinces with separate
administration under a separate council and an elected superintendent. The
provinces composed a federal State with a parliament, which, consisting of an
elected lower house of representatives and a nominated legislative council, met
for the first time in 1854 at Auckland, the seat of the governor and of the central
government. Simultaneously with the final settlement of the Australian consti-
tutional question in general, the forms of responsible government were extended
to New Zealand in all its parts. In the matter of the native question alone the
home government reserved the right of interference until 1862. The colonial
cabinet included a native minister, but his powers were slight ; all matters relating
to the natives and their lands were really settled by the governor and an imperial
official known as the native secretary.
The departure of Sir George Grey was followed by a cycle of years of external
tranquillity, and of visible prosperity for the colony. Nevertheless they contained
the germ of fresh troubles. From fear lest the chambers, in which they were not
represented, should weaken the power of the central government, which had been
greeted with confidence, the natives of the North Island combined into the " Land
League" (1856), which was intended to check completely the further sale of land
to the government. In 1857 matters culminated in a national combination, which
was intended to block the growth of the foreign element. The centre of the
movement lay on the shores of Lake Taupo in North Island, a region in which
the natives still kept their lands. South Island had by this time passed completely
into European hands, and therefore did not come within the sphere of war. The
lead hi the struggle was taken by the chiefs of the Waikato valley, who proclaimed
the old chief Potatau as their king. But Potatau was of a conciliating temper,
and the leading spirit of the whole agitation was the young and vigorous Wocemu
Kingi (William Thompson), of the tribe of the Ngatiawa, called the king-maker,
who had the support of the younger chiefs. As long as the " King of Peace,"
Potatau I, lived, the Maoris kept quiet.
Under his successor, Potatau II, hostilities to the whites broke out (1860),
which soon assumed such proportions that the British government sent out Sir
George Grey to New Zealand for the second time. In spite of all the respect
which the natives entertained for him, and of the constitution which he gave
the Maoris, he was unable to procure more than a brief suspension of hostilities.
The question now to be answered was which race should remain in the country.
The great Maori war lasted fully ten years, if several interruptions owing to the
exhaustion of both sides are included. The Maoris showed in it a courage and
endurance, which places them in the first rank of all primitive peoples ; on the
other hand the English operations were hampered by continual friction between
the colonial government, the governor, and the commanders of the military forces
sent from home ; and these dissensions were not the less disastrous because the
%££?***] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 339
blame for them lay rather with the system of dual control itself than with the'
individuals who were fated to work it. One defeat of the English followed
another; troops after troops were sent across from England and Australia as
time went on. At length in 1866 William Thompson the chief of the Waikato
confederacy made his submission ; a last effort on the part of his more irrecon-
cilable supporters was crushed in 1868 and 1869 by the colonial troops, the
English regiments having left the island. Practically the war was at an end by
1867. In that year an agreement was made that the Maoris should have four
seats in the lower house ; in 1870 peace was completely restored. The war had
cost the colony and the mother country a large sum of money, had imposed a
heavy burden of debt, of which the effect was to be felt for the next fifteen years,
and had sacrificed a considerable proportion of the colonists.
The natives, their pride crushed and deprived of all hope of maintaining their
nationality or even their race, withdrew into " Kingsland," a district some sixteen
hundred square miles in size to the northwest of Lake Taupo, where they were
left unmolested for a time. The last three decades indeed have not been entirely
free from collisions with the whites ; but on the whole the Maoris have resigned
themselves to the situation. They have cultivated a considerable part of Kings-
land on a sensible system, and they possess more than three million sheep, fifty
thousand cattle, and one hundred thousand pigs. Almost all can speak and write
English, and all have been baptised ; they eagerly vote for parliament, where they
are represented by four members in the lower house and two in the upper house.
It is true that here too the old nationality is gone irrevocably ; the forty thousand
Maoris, for such is the figure to which the nation numbering one hundred and
fifty thousand in its palmy days has shrunk, hardly resemble their ancestors in
any one respect. They have not, for two generations, practised cannibalism, but,
on the other hand, they have become addicted to drunkenness ; and consumption,
asthma, and scrofula have followed in the wake of this vice.
(e) The Colonial Development of New Zealand. — "New Zealand has been un-
fortunate in its development as a colony from first to last," wrote Ferdinand von
Hochstetter in 1862. Almost a century had elapsed since James Cook had hoisted
the flag of Great Britain on its shores, and there were not yet one hundred thou-
sand European colonists in the country. The causes of this slow movement, as
compared with the rapid development of New South Wales and Victoria, were not
to be found in the nature of the country ; the South Island, which was almost
entirely spared from disturbances, developed during those first decades considerably
faster than the North Island, where war was raging. The squatters (p. 265) and
shepherds who immigrated from New South Wales and Tasmania, soon perceived
that the South Island was very suitable for sheep farming, and a few years after
the founding of the church colonies Otago and Canterbury (p. 337) almost the
entire centre and east of the island were divided into pasture lands. In 1861 the
island exported, roughly, eight million pounds of wool of the value of £500,000
sterling; in 1899 wool was by far the chief export of New Zealand (£4,330,000).
The South Island also gained much from the discovery of gold. The finds at
Coromandel and Nelson on the North Island in 1852 remained solitary instances
until in 1861 the discovery of the rich alluvial deposits at Otago produced a reg-
ular gold fever. After they were exhausted, the productive fields on the west
340 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ui
coast were worked. Otago exported in 1863 gold to the value of more than
£2,000,000, the west coast in 1866 rather more. Toward the end of the
" sixties " the production and export from the North Island increased. Owing to
this the confidence of the mother country in the future of New Zealand was
immensely strengthened ; the London money market shows a long list of loans
made during the last thirty years for the development of the resources of the
country. New Zealand at the present day has the largest public debt of any
country in the world. (On March 31, 1900, £47,870,000 sterling, equivalent to
£61 13s. per head.)
The administration has undergone very few alterations in the course of the last
half century. At the beginning of the " sixties " it was certain that the union of
the provinces, which in course of time had increased by three, and were working
independently side by side, was only a question of time. After Wellington, which
lies in the centre (on Cook Strait), had been chosen for the federal capital, the
privileges of the provinces were abolished in 1875. Since then New Zealand
consists of eighty-one counties, which send their representatives to parliament at
Wellington. On the question of foreign policy, and the decision for or against
federation with the Australian Commonwealth, the reader can refer to pages 243,
298, and 328. The main questions of domestic politics are temporarily obscure.
A "democratic experimental policy " is followed (Moritz Schanz), but efforts are
made to solve the land question, if possible, in favour of the small people and to
promote native industries by high import duties ; on the whole, since the falling
off in the output of gold, socialism is much to the fore.
9. MISSIONAEY WORK IN THE SOUTH SEA
A. MISSIONS IN AUSTRALIA
THE whites acquired influence over the destinies of the Australians and Ocean-
ians, as over the majority of primitive peoples, in two ways ; by taking possession
of their territory politically and exploiting its industries, and by introducing
Christianity into the national paganism. It is a characteristic feature in Oceania
that the impression produced by the missions far surpassed the other in perma-
nence and to some degree in results. This is not the case with the Australian
continent, where missionary attempts have always remained occasional and,1, in
comparison with the gigantic area, of trifling extent ; they were timidly commenced
and achieved no important results. Much indeed is told us of the achievements
of native pupils in reading, writing, and arithmetic, but that says less for the gen-
eral success of the mission than for the intellectual gifts of the race. The love
of the Australian black fellow for an irregular, hand-to-mouth, hunter's life was
ineradicable.
B. MISSIONS IN OCEANIA
BETTER prospects were open to the missionary in Oceania (see the map of the
religious and missions of the world in Vol. VII, p. 357). In the first place the
confined area allowed a concentration of all available forces, and in the next place
the national disunion of the Oceanians prepared the ground for the missionaries,
as the conversions of Thakombau, Pomare, and Kamehameha II show ; the prospect
££$£"*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 341
of the political support of the white preachers of the gospel was too alluring, and
many availed themselves of the easy method of an almost always superficial change
of faith. The real results of conversion are nevertheless generally unimportant.
The very promising commencement made in Tahiti (p. 315) suffered a severe set-
back after the interference of the missionaries in the disputes for the throne. In
New Zealand the disorders under Hongi (p. 333) brought the work of conversion
to a standstill for years, as was the case in Hawaii from the struggle of the Kame-
liameha dynasty for the political headship in the archipelago. It was only on Tonga
that the conversion of the entire north was completed within ten years of mission-
ary work (1830-1840). The kings Taufaahau and Tubou lent it valuable aid, and,
besides that, the field was then left exclusively to the Protestant church. From
the moment when the French bishop Pompallier set foot on the soil of Tongatabu
(1841 ; cf. above, p. 335) we have presented to us that picture of denominational
discord and intense jealousy among the disciples of the different schools of religion,
which only too easily poisoned other phases of national life.
This hostility between the confessions is one of the greatest hindrances to mis-
sionary work in Oceania, and prevents any disinterested feeling of joy being felt
when a whole group of peoples is won for Christianity. It is difficult to decide on
whom the chief blame rests, since the accounts of individual efforts as well as of
the combined result vary according to the denominations. But in the great major-
ity of cases the Catholic missions, which came too late, were the disturbing ele-
ment. Since they enjoyed the protection of France everywhere, they made up for
their tardiness by unscrupulous action, of which the events on Tahiti, the Mar-
quesas, and Tuamotu, in Hawaii, and above all in the Loyalty Isles supply us with
examples. In the Loyalty Isles, the English missionary Murray had won over the
greater part of three islands to Protestantism. In 1864 the group of islands was
occupied by the French, at the instigation of Catholic missionaries, and Protestant
were replaced by Catholic services. The French soldiers treated the natives so
harshly that various powers lodged protests with the government of Napoleon III.
But this interference only became disastrous in 1872, 1873, and 1880, when in
regular religious wars between the members of the two churches even women and
children were not spared.
On the other hand the Protestant mission must be made responsible to a large
degree for having often combined the functions of missionary and trader. This
practice, which had been adopted by John Williams, the apostle of the South Sea,
has not been discontinued, in spite of frequent prohibitions by England. The co-
operation of all whites, which is an essential condition for an effective mission
of civilization, was thus destroyed ; the professional trader had no motive for
supporting the church whose labourers were obnoxious to him as competitors.
There was also a second reason. While the Catholic missionary sharply defined
the exterior boundaries of his community, and then devoted himself exclusively to
it (hence the success of the Jesuits in building up large communities, the increase
of Catholics on Hawaii, etc.), the Protestant missionary was distracted by reason of
his business as a trader. Both confessions were equally open to the reproach of
having interfered in the political affairs of the Oceanians, as long as any territory
was still to be obtained. It is true that the missionaries working alone in the
middle of turbulent tribes, were often forced to take one side or the other, if they
did not wish to risk both their lives and the success of their missions ; but just as
342 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter in
frequently we find no apparent cause. In New Zealand there had been an
attempt to found a separate Maori kingdom under ecclesiastical rule, a counter-
part to the Jesuit State in Paraguay (Vol. 1, p. 400).
What did missions do for the Oceanians ? In the controversy, which raged in
the press for nearly , the whole nineteenth > century, as to tjie value of missions
in the South Sea, many voices entirely condemned their line of action. Charles
Darwin, on the other, hand, has pointed out that, apart from other progress,
missionary activity had the noteworthy result of creating a network of stations,
over the wide South Sea, before the value of that proceeding was realised by the
Western powers, and by so doing indisputably civilized the habits of the native ;
we have only to compare the little-visited Solomon islanders with the formerly
savage and now quite peaceful Fijians. The credit of this does not belong entirely
to the missions. So long as they alone represented Europeanism, there was on the
contrary much bloodshed in Oceania (wars of Hongi, dynastic conflicts on Tahiti,
Hawaii, Tonga, and Samoa). It was only when the strong hands of the colonial
governments, which were more concerned with the undisturbed possession of the
country than the welfare of the inhabitants, guided the helm, that these improve-
ments in culture were evident.
The mixture of good and evil in the achievements of the missionaries is visible
in the domain of knowledge. It must not be forgotten with what zeal the more
enlightened of them identified themselves from the first with the national feelings
of the Oceanic peoples, and how much they collected which has been essential for
our later comprehension of the subject. But it is none the less to be remembered
that in the complete (although possibly inevitable) destruction of the national
characteristics of Oceania, no persons took part more ignorantly than these very
missionaries. They unscrupulously invaded every branch of the national life in
order to adapt them to their own views. They even substituted, in many parts,
the ugly calicoes of Europe for the time-honoured dress, at once tasteful and
practical, of Oceania ; they introduced fashions which were bound to jar on the
native sense of beauty, and which, by their total disregard of hygienic laws, have
promoted the increase of various chronic diseases.
Now, when the island world of Oceania is divided, missions with their thoroughly
successful enterprises have played their historical part. The history of mankind
now takes broader strides ; its wide paths surround even the diminutive islands in
the Pacific.
10. THE COLONIAL HISTOKY OF THE SOUTH SEA
OCEANIA, at the present day, is in its full extent colonial territory ; the few
land surfaces on which as yet no white power flies its flags, are uninhabited
or barren rocks and reefs. The New Hebrides alone are not yet disposed of. The
value attached to Oceania, which is expressed in its political annexation, dates
from recent times. Apart from the Marianne Isles, on which the beginnings of
Spanish colonisation go back to the sixteenth century, no group of islands found
favour in the eyes of European governments before the close of the eighteenth
century. The reason was the deficiency of Oceania in precious metals, valuable
spices, and rich stuffs. This deficiency made the region valueless to the leading
colonisers of early times, Spain and Portugal; the others, however, Holland,
£££"•"?] HISTORY. OF THE WORLD
France, and England, had their hands .full with the development of then- Indian,
African, and American colonial possessions. ,
The first steps toward the colonisation of Oceania in the nineteenth century
were taken by the French. Since the conquest of Algeria was not enough to prop
his tottering throne, Louis Philippe had, after the middle of the " thirties," issued
the programme of a Polynesian colonial empire. The plan only succeeded in
East Polynesia, where a really compact region could be brought under French
suzerainty ; elsewhere France had already opponents of her schemes to contend
with, who were found not only in the ranks of the Protestant missionaries, but
also in the cabinets of London, Washington, and St. Petersburg. She was thus
able to annex only the southeast wing of West Melanesia, New Caledonia, p,nd
its vicinity.
England has had to take over a large part of her present Oceanic possessions,
even New Zealand, under compulsion, not from choice. In earlier times the con-
stantly recurring fear of French rivalry was the moving cause. As German trade
relations with the South Sea developed, there was the additional anxiety of German
encroachment, and in this connection the Australian colonies and New Zealand, now
conscious of their place in history, had become the representatives of the British
idea of colonisation. When the German Empire stepped on to the colonial world
stage, the half-compulsory annexation of new territories to the British colonial
empire ceased. Since then Albion tries to take anything that is left to be taken.
At the present day it may regard Central Melanesia, Central Polynesia, and South-
east Micronesia as its spheres of interests. The " free " New Hebrides, French New
Caledonia, and German Samoa make little difference to this.
Germany has become a colonial power in consequence of long-standing com-
mercial relations. In this way it could partly occupy unclaimed countries ; partly
also, following the American example, it has entered upon the inheritance of the
oldest Pacific power, the Spaniards. At the present time Germany rules a compact
territory, important both by its extent and wealth, which comprises a large part of
Melanesia, and almost all Micronesia, but, like the French possessions, suffers from
its excessive remoteness from the mother country. Besides this, Germany has
rivals, which are formidable both industrially and politically, in the new American
colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines, and still more in Australia. Samoa, which
lies in front, will prove more of a trouble than a blessing to the empire.
The power which has appeared last in order of time on the Pacific stage is the
United States of America, whose right of entry has been bought by the expulsion
of Spain. The firm footing of the Union on the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam
(Mariannes), and Tutuila (Samoa), that is, on four places distributed over the
whole range of islands, becomes important from the change in the political situation
thus produced; America, which hitherto has turned its face merely toward the
east, now looks to the Pacific. At the same time it is preparing to cut through the
only obstacle to the development of its power on the west, the Central-American
isthmus. The total effect of this American movement is that the possession of
Oceania is valued more highly than before, and that the Pacific Ocean has become
the focus of interest in the history of man (Vol. I, Chapter VI) ; recent events on
the east coast of Asia furnish the best proof of this. Oceania has room only for
colonisation by the great powers. Spain has been compelled to leave it, since it
has been blotted out from the list of living world powers. Portugal, following the
344 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapterin
decisive sentence of a pope, has never set foot on it. Holland, at the most easterly
extremity of its colonial kingdom, just touches the Pacific with Dutch New
Guinea; but it has not yet been active there. Chili possesses Easter Island
merely for show. Japan, finally, has found on Hawaii the doors closed to her.
11. THE ANTARCTIC EEGION
THE region round the South Pole is, in all probability, uninhabited. We do
not even know whether a continuous land surface or islands support the enormous
fields of polar ice. The history of such a region can only be expressed in the
effects which its exploration has produced on the course of the development of
human civilization. These begin at a quite early date with the idea of the unknown
southern country (cf. p. 253). The search for it fills a large part of the sixteenth, the
seventeenth, and quite two-thirds of the eighteenth, centuries. In the geographical
exploration of that time, which was dominated by material aims, it was the only
object of discovery with an ideal background, and for that very reason it was not
without significance for the history of mankind. The investigation of the relative
proportions of water and land on the surface of the globe is one of the few questions
of physical geography on a large scale to which two millenniums have seriously
devoted their attention. The feeling of uncertainty was first dissipated by the
magnificent polar circumnavigation of James Cook (1772-1775). Since then people
have been contented with the consciousness that the earth, even without the
enormous counterpoise to the northern regions which the students of physiography
demanded, pursues its path in safety. In this respect, the Antarctic regions, which
are inferior to the north polar continent in significance for the history of mankind,
are indisputably more interesting.
With the beginning of the age of scientific geographical exploration the im-
portance of the two polar regions for the development of human culture has been
somewhat altered. The revival of Arctic and Antarctic exploration in the year 1818
(J. Ross and W. E. Parry) has invested the two regions on the verge of the
inhabited world with the character of a neutral sphere of exploration for all
civilized nations. The laborious efforts of the nineteenth century to become
acquainted with the dwelling places of man, even in the remotest corners, is one of
the most attractive chapters in the history of the world. Undismayed by disastrous
failures, civilization has for fully a century striven to reach this goal, and has been
rewarded by great success. While, in spite of all the idealism which fills modern
-exploration, human selfishness is conspicuous, so soon as the further destinies of
the discovered lands come into the question, the Arctic and Antarctic regions form
an honourable exception ; they are of little or no economic value, but the scientific
gain to be derived from them is immense. For this reason the civilized nations
of to-day consider both these regions, and particularly the south polar lands, as
sacred ground, where any one is welcome who wishes to co-operate in the unveiling
of those far remote dwelling places which lie hushed in icy night. From the
moment when this veil is lifted, mankind will feel the poorer by the loss of that
property now common to all.
India
<•] HISTORY, OF THE WORLD 345
IV
INDIA
Br PROFESSOR DR. EMIL SCHMIDT
1. THE CHARACTEKISTICS OF NEARER INDIA
A. THE COUNTRY
(a) General Observations. — Few countries in the world contain within well-
defined boundaries a greater diversity of geographical, anthropological, and ethno-
graphical conditions than those displayed by the Indian peninsula. India is
indeed a world in miniature ; those natural conditions which modify the progress
of civilization are varied in the extreme, and the civilization of the inhabitants
of this country is characterised by divergencies which are the inevitable result of
•conformation to so varied an environment. The points of contrast are intensified
by their mutual proximity; broad alluvial plains are followed by the highest
mountains in the world, burning tropical heat by the everlasting frost of the snow-
clad peaks, the extremity of drought by the greatest rainfall in the world, tropical
luxuriance by appalling desolation. Here we find savages living almost entirely
on the products of the chase, and by agriculture of the most primitive character ;
again, we find Brahmans devoted to the contemplation of the deepest problems
of human existence ; here we find the black Dravidians, there the yellow-skinned
Mongols, with the representatives of the white races in the flourishing capital
towns. The history of India is a history of the struggles for predominance between
these different peoples and races.
Nearer India owes its name to the river upon its northwest frontier, the
•" rushing " Sindhu of the Aryans, a name which was extended to include all the
territory beyond the river by the old civilizations of Europe, when they first came
in contact with this distant land. India is the midmost of the great peninsulas
which project southward from the continent of Asia. The southern portion of
the country lies within the tropic zone, while its northern regions advance into
the temperate zone beyond latitude 35°. Its frontier position has separated it
from immediate communication with the steppes and deserts upon the boundaries
of Asia proper except upon the north, the northeast, and northwest; its coasts
running southwest and southeast are bounded by broad seas impassable to peoples
in the lower stages of civilization. Upon the extreme south the island of Ceylon
lies so close to the mainland that the intervening straits are rather a means of
communication than an obstacle to intercourse.
The area of India is nearly equivalent to that of Western Europe, if a line
of division be drawn passing through the eastern frontiers of Norway, Denmark,
Germany, and Austria (cf. Vol. VII, p. 1). In respect of population it considerably
346 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
surpasses the district thus defined (293,000,000 as compared with 240,000,000) ;.
while its population is more than double that of East Europe (125,000,000).
(6) The Configuration of the Country. — The configuration of the country in
horizontal section is simple ; its long coasts are broken by but few capes or gulfs,
and these of little importance. The largest gulf is that of Cambay (Khambat),
which was of high importance at an early period as a commercial centre. Good
harbours are comparatively few in number (Bombay and Goa). Upon the west
coast landing is a difficult operation, as the western ghats descend abruptly
to the sea, while on the east the coast, though flat, is lashed by formidable seas
during the monsoon season. Lagoons have been formed only in the south of the
peninsula on either side of its extremity. These facilitate communication along
the coast even during the unfavourable monsoon season. On the northeast and
northwest of the coast line the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, which
bring down large quantities of sediment, have pushed out formidable deltas into the
sea, communication through which is impeded by the constant changes in the
course of the various mouths and the heavy deposits of silt; one arm of the Ganges
alone (Hugli) has attained to political and commercial importance during the last
one hundred and fifty years. The Indian frontier with respect to the rest of Asia
is defined with no less simplicity than the coast line.
The configuration of the country, considered in vertical sections, is more com-
plicated. Here we meet with three great districts characterised by sharply
contrasting features, the great mountain range in the north of the peninsula,,
the lowlands in the north of India, and the table-land in the south.
The northern frontier of India, which divides the country from the table-lands
of Central Asia, is formed by the highest mountain range in the world, the " home
of snows," the Himalayas. Bounded upon the east and on the west by the open-
ings made respectively by the Brahmaputra and the Indus, this range has a length of
fifteen hundred miles, with a nearly uniform breadth of one hundred and thirty-seven
miles ; its area is almost equivalent to that of Germany. Its importance for India
consists in the climatic protection it affords against the influence of the waterless
districts of Asia, in the large rainfall which it collects, in the supply which it
affords to the great fertilising streams of Northern India, and in the protection
it gives to the country against the invasions of the restless inhabitants of the
steppes. Not only does the range contain the highest peaks in the world, but it is
as a whole almost impassable for large bodies of men. Never has there been
an invasion of India from Tibet across the Himalaya by great armies or large
bodies of people. The mad attempt of the sultan Mohammed ibn-Tughlak
to attack China by land ended with the total destruction of the army of Hindustan
in the snow-fields of the mountain (1337). The few passes which exist can be
traversed only at rare intervals and by small bodies ; the merchant and the mis-
sionary make their way across them ; from a remote period, a certain number
of Mongol immigrants have very gradually trickled into Northern India by this
route (Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal), by which also Buddhism made its way to the
north.
Mountain systems join the Himalaya at either end, completely excluding
India from, the rest of Asia. On the northwest we have the mountains dividing
India from Afghanistan and Baluchistan, which run from north to south, decreas-
*•*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD S4T
ing in height as they advance southward, and broken by several important
passes. These long, narrow valleys have been followed by all those foreign
invaders (Aryans, Assyrians, Greeks, Scythians, Afghans, Mongols, Persians,
etc.), who from earliest times have acted as modifying forces upon the historical
development of the Indian populations.
On the eastern side the Himalaya range is joined by a number of high, steep
mountain chains running north and south, divided by deep valleys, through which
the rivers of the Irawadi, Salwe*n, Mekong, Yaugtse-kiang, flow southward — a
barrier of extraordinary strength preventing any communication eastward. The
most westerly member of this mountain system sends one of its spurs southeast
to the Bay of Bengal, the Patkai Mountains, 5,666 feet in height. Thus upon the
east India is also shut off by a mountain wall surrounding the low-lying plains of
the lower Brahmaputra in the shape of a horse-shoe. This, wall is passable only
upon the south, and by this route has undoubtedly entered that infusion of Hindu-
Chinese blood which is plainly recognisable to the anthropologist in the mixed
races of Assam, Lower Bengal, and Orissa.
The second great region of India is composed of two great river systems, those
of the Indus and of the Ganges-Brahmaputra. The Indus turns at right angles to
the mountain range, taking the shortest route to the sea, which it reaches in a rapid
descent, a fact of no less importance for the nature and the inhabitants of its
valley than the fact that the long channels of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra
run parallel to the mountain range. While the Indus passes the spurs, of the
Himalaya, and is fed by tributaries from these sources, a sufficient supply of
moisture is available for the cultivation of the ground ; the earth then showers her
gifts upon mankind with such lavish bounty that the district of the Five Eivers,
even in the gray dawn of history, was the goal of the ambitions of the nomad
tribes inhabiting the dry steppes of Afghanistan and Central Asia. On the other
hand, in the valley of the lower Indus the arable land is restricted to a narrow
belt on either bank of the stream, which here runs so rapidly that navigation
is almost impossible, while it brings down such heavy deposits of silt that its delta
is continually changing, and the arms of the delta and the sea, in their neighbour-
hood, are with difficulty accessible on account of the outlying banks of sediment.
Eastwards from this arable country, upon the Indus, stretches the Great Desert,
across which communication is almost impossible. It extends southwards to the
sea, and northwards almost to the foot of the Himalayas, at which point alone a
narrow strip of land makes communication between the two river systems possible.
Hence it was at this spot that peoples advancing into India from the west came
into collision with the inhabitants already settled in the valley of the Ganges :
this district has repeatedly been the scene of those decisive battles which pre-
determined the history of India for long periods.
The eastern, which is the larger portion of the plains of North India, is far
more favourably situated than the western. The Ganges and Brahmaputra run
parallel to the mountains, though they are so far apart from the Himalayas, from
the heights of the Deccan on the south, and from the frontier mountain range
about Burmah, that on either side a wide declivity is available for copious irrigation
by artificial means. The whole river valley is alluvial land ; but a distinction
must be made between the earlier and the later deposits ; the line of demarcation
between these begins at the Ganges delta. Up to that point the land falls away
348 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
so rapidly from the west that the soil is dry and fruitful ; everywhere irrigation
can be provided in sufficient measure to satisfy the most zealous cultivator of the
soil, which also receives new deposits of rich manure from the silt-laden waters
of the rivers. Navigable streams cross this district, which is more suitable than
any other in India for the development of important towns (the Magadha kingdom,
the Mohammedan kingdom, the centre of the English supremacy; see also the
plate, p. 370). The characteristics of the eastern portion of the river valley
are wholly different ; in the delta of the Ganges, and in the whole of Assam the
deposits of silt have been so recently made, and the ground in consequence lies so
low, that drainage works are impossible ; the country is almost everywhere
in a swampy condition, and the malaria of the district is dangerous to human
occupants. Navigation is difficult, as also is communication by land, for the
ground is not sufficiently firm to permit the laying down of roads. Hence
the civilization of this part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra valley was in a compara-
tively backward condition before the rise of the English power in India ; Aryan
and Mussulman influences made themselves felt comparatively late, and it is only
during the last one hundred and fifty years that the greater intellectual power
and energy of Europeans has brought prosperity to the delta of the Ganges.
In the southern part of India the table-land known as the " South Land," the
Deccan of the Aryans of North India, rises in isolation. It forms a great elevated
highland with steep walls, which fall sheer into the Arabian Sea on the west (the
west ghats) ; on the eastern side the plateau is somewhat lower and lies at some
distance from the Bay of Bengal, from which it gradually retires as it advances
southward. In this district between the highlands and the sea rise individual
isolated plateaus and numerous single peaks, by which the plains are diversified.
The table-land attains its greatest height (with the mountains of Anamalai, 8,977 feet
high, and of Nilgiri, 8,477 feet high) on the west coast and falls gradually away to
the eastward. Hence most of the rivers of the Deccan run eastward (Son, Maha-
nadi, Godavari, Kistna, Kaveri, Tambraparni) ; two streams only, the Narbada and
the Tapti, have worn out deep gorges in their westward career. These, together
with the mountain ranges of the Yindhya and Satpura running parallel to them,
divide the highlands of the Deccan into a southern and northern half (Central
India), which for a long time proved an obstacle to the advance of the Aryans,
more by reason of its malarial swamps and its jungle vegetation than because of
its mountainous nature. All the above-mentioned streams are unimportant as
means of navigation and communication, on account of the variable water supply
and the rapids and waterfalls, by which they are broken when they reach the pre-
cipitous edge of the highlands.
(c) The Geographical Position. — Friedrich Katzel, the most brilliant of modern
geographers, has laid great emphasis upon the importance of geographical position
to national history ; the position of India has exercised a decisive influence upon
the whole course of development of the natural products of the country and its
population.
The position of this central peninsula of Southern Asia, situated as it is with
reference to the enormous dry, waterless districts of the desert and the steppes on
the one hand, and on the other hand to the tropical sea with its moisture-laden
atmosphere, determines the amount of the rainfall and its distribution, and there-
**] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 349
fore, also the fertility of different parts of the land, which again influences the
population. In the spring and summer the great deserts and steppes of Central
Asia are scorched by the sun which then attains its greatest altitude ; the baromet-
rical pressure is low and the currents of air with their burden of moisture from the
tropic Indian seas travel in a northeasterly direction across India (a deviation due
to the revolution of the earth). In the southern portion of the country these
clouds then meet the steep wall of the western ghats and deliver a large propor-
tion of their moisture, breaking in violent thunder storms upon the mountain wall
to return again to the sea in rushing brooks and streams. The air currents, however,
after crossing the watershed of the ghats become drier and provide but a scanty rain-
fall for the eastern district where the highlands slope away. Not until they reach
the giant wall of the Himalaya do they drop all the moisture which they have retained,
and for this reason the mountains of Assam can boast the heaviest rainfall upon the
earth (the rainfall of Cherra Punji in the Hsia Mountains of Assam amounts to four
hundred and forty-four inches during the summer and five hundred and twenty
for the whole of the year). On the other hand, during the winter months a high
barometrical maximum prevails over Central Asia, while South Africa and the
Indian Ocean, which are then scorched by the sun, show an average low baromet-
rical pressure. The currents take a backward movement and blow from the great
dry continent as the northeast monsoon, bringing but little moisture, and that at
uncertain intervals to India. Consequently the wide districts to the east of the
ghats as far as the Himalaya Mountains suffer greatly from drought, and should
the rains of the east monsoon fail, are confronted with terrible famines.
The fertility of the country depends upon the amount of natural or artificial
irrigation which it receives. Vegetation, apart from human agency, flourishes most
luxuriantly on the Malabar coast. Beyond the range of the western ghats differ-
ent conditions prevail. A forest country is first met with, where the deciduous
nature of the trees is a protection against the excessive drought of the dry season.
Vegetation then conforms to the character of the steppes in general and agri-
culture is restricted to the immediate neighbourhood of springs or tanks, to the
river banks, or to the river deltas. The steep wall of the western ghats ends upon
the north with the river Tapti, so that at this point the moisture-laden currents
penetrate more deeply into the country. The remoter heights of Central India
produce a heavier rainfall ; though the forests are more extensive in that district,
the prevalence of malaria is an obstacle to human occupation. The great plains
in the north of India receive a diminishing rainfall in proportion as they are
removed from the delta of the Ganges on the west ; compensation is, however,
afforded by the works of artificial irrigation which distribute the streams falling
from the Himalaya and in some degree those which rise on the north wall of the
Deccan. The delta of the Ganges and the lower ground in the valley of the
Brahmaputra suffer from an excess of rainfall and ground moisture.
The cultivation of the country, especially as regards the growth of cereals, is
primarily conditioned by the existing facilities for irrigation. Where copious
supplies of water are to be had, rice is the staple product of agriculture, as it is on
the whole of the Malabar coast, on the deltas of the Deccan rivers, of the Indus
and the Ganges, and in Assam. Under proper irrigation, land containing less
moisture will produce a heavy yield of wheat as is the case in the Punjab, the
British Northwest Province, Oudh, the Central Provinces, and certain favoured parts
350 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
of the presidency of Bombay. Where irrigation is difficult, several kinds of cereals
(such as Eleusine coracana, etc.) and other subsidiary products flourish. Where
the land is too dry for these plants, as is the case in large districts of the southern
Deccan, stock breeding (of the sheep, buffalo, etc.) enables mankind to make a
living at the expense of some hardship ; the caste of the Kurumbas (shepherds),
which is now scattered and decayed, played an important part at an early period.
B, THE POPULATION
THE population of India is distributed according to the fertility of the soil.
The mineral wealth of the country is comparatively small. Coal is by no means
common and has only recently been worked upon any large scale; iron ore is
widely distributed, but was only used by the natives to a very small extent, and the
importance of this industry has been practically extinguished by the competition
of the great European undertakings. The riches of India in precious metals and
stones have been considerably exaggerated ; the real wealth of the country does not
lie within the soil, but grows upon it. Consequently the population is almost
entirely of a peasant character ; the last census to hand shows only 2,035 towns
properly so-called among 717,549 settlements; of this number 1,401 had less than
1,000 inhabitants, 407 had between 10,000 and 20,000, and 227 had a population
above 20,000. Only 26 towns have more than 100,000 inhabitants and only 4 more
than 300,000 (Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and Haidarabad). In England 53 per
cent of the population live in 182 towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants, whereas
in India this holds good only of 4.84 per cent (distributed in 227 towns of 20,000
inhabitants). The collective population of the country (287,133,481 inhabitants
upon 1,560,080 square miles, excluding Burmah) gives an average of 184 inhabi-
tants to the square mile. In individual districts of some size this average varies
between 24 and 1,395 ; it is larger in British India than in the native States, a fact
apparently due to European influence upon the country, and still more to the
circumstance that England has occupied all those States where the soil is more
than usually fertile.
A systematic ethnographical examination of the population of India is an
extremely difficult task; no universal lines of division can be drawn including all
the most important phenomena of divergent nationality. The differences, moreover,
by no means run in parallel lines. The most important points to be noted are
physical characteristics, language, religion, and social peculiarities, together with the
characteristic signs of national feeling which these differences imply.
(a) Physical Characteristics. — The many changes in Indian history presuppose
the impossibility of any physical uniformity throughout the population. Apart
from the infusions of Portuguese and Dutch and English blood during the last four
centuries, foreign representatives of the white or yellow races have frequently
invaded the country through the northwest passes. However, as far as the Mongol
princes are concerned, almost every trace of their existence has disappeared from
the ethnological characteristics of the modern Indian. The Mediterranean (white)
races have, however, exercised a permanent modifying influence and their descend-
ants form one of the main racial elements of the country. From a remote epoch
vigorous commercial relations were maintained on the west coast with the western
»*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 351
continents, which have left their traces upon the physical characteristics of the coast
dwellers ; the Semitic type of countenance common among the Mohammedans of the
Malabar coast is derived from the Arabs. Fugitive Jews have repeatedly entered
the country in bodies, such as the Jews of Cochin (now thirteen hundred in
number) who, according to their traditions, left their country after the destruction
of their great sanctuary by Titus (70 A. D.) ; another instance is the Jewish colony
in Bombay which was expelled from its former settlements by Mohammedan
fanaticism. Similarly, a large number of fire worshippers fled from Persia in the
year 1717 before the zeal of the Mohammedans, and the coast of Bombay is now
inhabited by ninety thousand Parsees who remain true to the religion of Zara-
thustra. In many cases their Semitic cast of features recalls the representations
of the kings in ancient Nineveh, whereas others remind us of the modern represen-
tatives of the white races in the Armenian highlands (the Tadshik).
The east coast has been peopled rather by Indian migrations directed espe-
cially toward the opposite coast of Burmah (Klings, that is, descendants of the
kingdom of Kalinga) than by immigration from abroad. However, a strong infu-
sion of Mongolian blood has entered from the north and northeast. The southern
slopes of the Himalaya to the east of Dardistan are peopled by a mixed race of
Mongol Indians apparently formed by the slow infusion of Mongols from Tibet
over the extremely difficult mountain passes. A similar population is to be found
in Assam and in many of the tribes inhabiting East Bengal and Orissa, though
here the Mongol element more probably entered the country by the easier route
through Burmah than by crossing the extremely difficult mountain ranges which
run in parallel lines to the east of Assam.
All these infusions of foreign blood, however, excluding the mixed Indo-
Mongolian population, form a very small and almost unappreciable element in the
racial composition of the country. The two main component elements are the
representatives of a white race, which entered the country from the northwest at a
comparatively early period (more than four or five thousand years ago), and a dark
race, which may be considered as directly descended from the original population.
This race is recognisable by the dark colouring of the hair, eyes, and skin, which
is of universal distribution, and is often intensified into the deepest shades of dark
brown ; a further characteristic point, reminding us of the black negro races of
Africa, is the moderate size of the skull and the short, broad nose ; the race, how-
ever, is differentiated from the negro type by the shorter and more upright stature,
and especially by the hair, which though black, is but moderately crisp, and while
often found in curls or waves is never of a woolly nature. The representative
typ-r-3 of this race usually attain a stature which is considerably less than the
average height of the German. Eaces living under very unfavourable conditions,
with an insufficiency of nourishment (such as many of the dwellers in the moun-
tains and jungles, the slave castes, etc.), are so far below this average stature that
they may be considered as dwarf tribes (cf. Vol. Ill), though it is impossible to
make this characteristic a line of demarcation between them and the other dark
races of India.
The white races in India are distinguished from the dark especially by their
complexion, which in pure blooded types is no deeper than that of the Europeans
about the Mediterranean. Their average stature is considerably higher, while their
features are smaller, and their noses, with higher bridges, are more prominent than
in the case of the black races.
352 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
An examination of the geographical distribution of the different Indian races
will begin with what are, comparatively speaking, pure representatives of the fair
races on the northwest, immediately adjoining the population of Afghanistan and
Baluchistan, which has been more or less modified by infusions of Semitic blood.
Such influence is less prominent in Kashmir, in the hill country, and the Five
Rivers district as far as the upper course of the Ganges; on the other hand,
further eastward in the centre, and especially in the lower course of the Ganges, a
deeper complexion may be observed in many of the subordinate grades of caste
and settlement. Further east again in Assam, the characteristics of the fair race
disappear by degrees, and are but moderately pronounced among the higher castes ;
the chief element of the population is formed by the fusion of the black and
yellow races. Of similar composition are the numerous small mountain tribes of
the Himalaya as far as Dardistan. Southward the fusion of black and yellow
comes to an end about the frontiers of Orissa ; at this point the characteristics of
the fair race are again strongly marked in the higher castes (Brahmans). In
Central India is found a belt of almost purely dark complexioned population;
further south again in the Deccan and the plains upon its frontier the black races
are greatly preponderant, though in individual castes varying infusions of white
blood may be observed. On the west coast, on the other hand, with the exception
of small colonies of foreigners (Jews and Parsees), closely united bodies of white
inhabitants are to be found concentrated among the dark population. Individual
branches of the Brahman caste (the Konkanath, Nambutiri, and Haiga Brahmans)
zealously preserve the purity of their caste and race ; a warrior caste of the Nair
and the caste of the Temple Maidens are distinguished from the surrounding popu-
lation by their fairer complexions.
(b) The Languages of India. — Indian languages display the utmost variety.
Philology has distinguished three typical forms of language, the isolating, the
agglutinative, and the inflectional. These three types are represented in India, and,
in general, coincide with the three racial types there represented ; the mixed Mon-
golian and dark-skinned races (Hindu-Chinese), the unmixed dark races (the
Dravidians) and the white race (the Aryans). If a straight line be drawn from
Goa in a northwesterly direction to Eajmahal, at the beginning of the Ganges
delta (see the map, p. 430), the agglutinative languages will lie chiefly to the
southeast of this line, the district of the inflectional languages extending on the
northwest into the Ganges delta and the valley of the Bramaputra, while the iso-
lating languages are found at the edge of the southern slopes of the Himalayas
and the mountains of Southern Assam. The boundary between the Aryan and
Dravidian languages is not to be conceived as a sharp line of demarcation ; the
Dravidian languages are sporadically found within the district of the Aryan
tongues. The early disruption of the Dravidian peoples has naturally brought
about great differences of grammatical form, and many dialects have borrowed
numbers of foreign words from neighbouring languages. These isolated Dravidian
tribes invariably live hard lives upon a low plane of civilization ; they include the
Khonds, in the mountain districts of Orissa, Ganjam and Cuttack; the Gonds, a
tribe which has been broken into several isolated linguistic units, between the
Narbada and Godavari, the Oraon in Chota Nagpur, and finally the most northerly
representative of this division, the Mai Paharia, established upon the lower
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 353
Ganges in the mountains of Eajmahal, whose language, though greatly differing
from the other Dravidian tongues, must none the less be included within the Dra-
vidian family. Whether the Brahui, who inhabit the district from the Lower
Indus to Baluchistan, should be added to the Dravidian family, is an unsettled
question. Assuming that they are members of this family, the strong differences
between their language and that of related tribes may easily be explained as the
effect of the different migrations which had passed over their country. Philologi-
cally their language resembles in such respects the Dravidian languages of South
India. More accurate information will be forthcoming upon the conclusion of the
" Linguistic Survey of India," undertaken by George A. Grierson.
The Kolarians (about three millions in number) in the Presidencies of Bengal,
Madras, and the Central Provinces, are an ethnological puzzle ; they have been
broken into isolated communities, and their language, which was undoubtedly
widely distributed at an early period, has been broken up and confined by the
advance of the Aryan and Dravidian languages. Their language is to be distin-
guished from the Dravidian tongues (though physically they closely resemble the
Dravidian type) by an entirely different vocabulary, and by an embryonic inflec-
tional system. As yet, however, very little is known of them, and further research
will no doubt modify the views now held upon their philological position and
dialectical division. It has been said, but by no means proved, that they are phi-
lologically related to certain tribes of Further India.
(c) The Distribution of the Indian Religions. — The construction of a scheme
to illustrate the distribution of the different religions is by no means facilitated by
the fact that sharp distinction between them is often impossible. The simple con-
ception of a divine being, inherited and obstinately retained from the earliest
periods of tribal development, is in every case the primitive underlying idea,
and is manifest even in the most advanced religious systems. While the Hindus
assert their faith now in Vishnu, now in Siva, at the same time none are found to
deny the existence of demons, upon whom the religious fears and veneration of
lower tribes are entirely concentrated, and these powers have also been recognised
within the Hindu heaven. Consequently, statistics of the adherents of the various
religions are extremely unreliable ; their variations as compared with the known
populations of different nationalities frequently show the lines of religious demar-
cation to be extremely vague and unstable. For the lowest of these faiths, the
demon worship, the census of 1890, gives a percentage of 2.64 of the whole popu-
lation in British India, and of 5.20 for the other parts of the country. Under
these figures are comprised chiefly the wild races dwelling in inaccessible jungle
districts, which have been as yet untouched by Brahman civilization, and also
many of the so-called slave castes. Consequently, pure demon worship exists
chiefly among the Dravidian and Kolarian races in the Central Provinces (14.8 per
cent of the population), and in the neighbouring native States (22.7 per cent),
though it is also found in Lower Bengal (13 per cent), in Assam (17.7 per cent), etc.
The greater proportion of the inhabitants of India (72^- per cent) are worship-
pers of one or other of the great divinities of the Hindus. Where this average is
not attained we find that Hinduism has had to struggle with Mohammedanism,
and also with demon worship, or other special forms of religion ; such cases are
the Punjab (37.1 per cent Hindus, 55.7 per cent Mohammedans, 6.7 per cent
VOL. 11 — 23
S« HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Sikhs), Kashmir (27.2 per cent Hindus, 70.5 per cent Mohammedans), Assam
(54.7 per cent Hindus, 27 per cent Mohammedans, 17.7 per cent demon worship-
pers), the whole of Bengal (63.4 per cent Hindus, 32.8 per cent Mohammedans,
3.2 demon worshippers). In all the other provinces and States the average percent
age of Hinduism is surpassed, and is highest in the south of India, especially in
Mysore, Kurg, Haidarabad, in the Presidency of Madras and in Poonah and Baroda.
The Mohammedan worshippers have been estimated at 243,000,000, and of
this total 57,000,000, that is, almost a quarter (23.5 per cent) belong to India.
This belief is represented in every part of India ; the tolerance displayed by the
Mohammedans toward the caste system gives them the advantage of being able to
maintain commercial relations with every branch of society in the country, though
naturally to a larger extent in the older Mohammedan towns. Consequently, the
northwest provinces and States (where Islam entered the country) are most
thickly populated with Mohammedan worshippers ; to the average already given
for the Punjab and Kashmir we must add Sindh with 70 per cent of Moham-
medans ; these are followed by the chief provinces of the Mogul Empire, the
mountainous frontier of the northwest provinces (30.6 per cent), East Bengal
(with more than half of the inhabitants) and individual parts of the Presidency of
Bombay (especially the old trading stations, etc.). In the south, the numbers of
the Mohammedans diminish considerably. The faith is practically unknown to
the tribes of the Central Provinces and a very small percentage is found in Mysore
and Haidarabad. Mohammedanism would also be unrepresented in the remaining
Presidency of Madras were not the prevailing Hinduism broken by individual
groups of Mohammedans (the Mapilla or Moplah on the Malabar coast, the Labbe
on the Coromandel coast; both groups have originated in the presence of Arab
traders).
Buddhism, at one time so widespread in India, has now degenerated into
Hindu-polytheism in the mountainous countries of the north (Himalaya and the
Kashmir valleys), and on the northeast (the frontiers of Tibet and Bunnah). Few
adherents survive of the northern branch of this religion, and in Kashmir alone
they scarcely amount to one per cent of the whole population. The Jain religion,
which is related to Buddhism, is better represented in certain provinces, though
nowhere has it retained a higher average than five per cent of the whole popu-
lation. Rajputana, Ajmir, and Gujarat are the chief centres of this belief,
which only numbers 1,400,000 adherents throughout India (one-half per cent of
the whole population).
Of other religions we may mention that of the Sikhs, which is almost exclu-
sively confined to the Punjab (1,900,000, two-thirds per cent of the whole population).
They form the Hindu sect, which has been influenced by Mohammedanism, and
their religion is now only distinguished from Hinduism by its ceremonial. Other
religions which have entered India from abroad are very weakly represented ; such
are the Parsees (the west coast of India, with Bombay as their centre), with 90,000,
that is, 0.03 per cent, the Jews (early colonists in Bombay and Cochin, together
with scattered Jews of various origin throughout India), numbering 17,200 souls
(0.006 per cent), and the Christians with 2,300,000 (0.8 per cent). Of these latter.
2,036,600, that is, 89 per cent, are converted natives, while 80,000, that is, 3.5
l«-r cent, are half-breed Indians, and 168,000, that is, 7.4 per cent, are Europeans.
More than half of this latter number are soldiers with their relatives.
/*/*.! HISTORY OF THE WORLD 355
(d) The Caste System. — The caste system has exercised so deep an influ-
ence, is so characteristic a phenomenon of Indian social life, and is, moreover, an
institution of such infinite diversity in its details that its true nature can only be
understood in connection with its historical development as a part of the national
history (cf. p. 374 ff.).
2. THE HISTORY OF INDIA
THE history of India is a drama in three great acts. The first of these is
occupied by the struggles of two races for predominance ; the second, by the strug-
gles of two religions ; and the third, by the conflict for the economic exploitation of
the country. In the first epoch, Aryans are opposed to Dravidians. The result of
their struggle is a development of a mixed race of people whose political, social,
and religious institutions are to be explained partly as the result of fusion, and
partly as due to the predominant influence of one or the other element. The
mixed people which was thus developed supported the Hindu religion and theory
of existence. The Semitic, Turanian, and Mongol tribes who entered the country
from the northwest brought the Mohammedan faith with them, and the life and
death struggle of these two religions forms the second epoch. In the third act
Europeans appear upon the scene, and the economic struggle for the wealth of the
country ends with the total collapse both of Mohammedan and Hindu indepen-
dence, victory remaining with the side that possessed superior intellectual power,
clearer foresight, and greater strength. From the prehistoric period to the end of
the first thousand years after Christ forms the period of native Aryan-Dravidian
development (the period of ancient India). For about seven hundred years the
struggle of Hinduism with the foreign religion continued, and forms the " mediaeval "
period, while the " modern " period contains only the last one hundred and fifty
years, in which, however, the whole people has undergone far more fundamental
changes than any that all previous centuries have brought to pass.
A. ANCIENT INDIA
(a) Prehistoric Age. — We have first of all to consider the two races whose
struggle composed the first epoch of Indian history, together with the mutual
influence which they exercise upon each other.
(a) The Original Inhabitants of the Country. — The original inhabitants of
India have left us neither written nor traditional records of their existence during
the prehistoric period. Traces of human agency during this epoch have, however,
been discovered in India. As in Europe, discoveries of stone implements, of lance
and arrow heads, of knives, razors, hammers, etc., made of jasper, agate, and chal-
cedony (flint proper does not occur in India) show that an earlier age of human
development preceded the time when metals were employed. Whether this period
goes back to the Tertiary age, as many investigators suppose, is still a doubtful
question.
Graves and funeral monuments are frequently met with ; on the Malabar coast
we find tombs dug in the earth. Mounds of earth or stone cairns are of frequent
occurrence throughout India. Such a cairn in the country of Gond is supposed to
356 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapte, iv
commemorate the death of a tribal princess in battle, and was increased by the
practice which the passers-by observed of casting upon the heap one of the quartz
crystals which are numerous in that district. Further discoveries have been made
of stone burial- chambers, corridors for sculpture, megalithic stone tables with three
or more supporting stones, menhirs (single stones set up on end), single or double
circles of stones, stone avenues, etc. ; in short, of all those arrangements in stone
which occur in the countries about the Mediterranean Sea (see Vol. I, p. 163),
together with pure Indian forms, such as the Kudikal (that is, umbrella stone) or
the Topikal of Malabar (hat stone or stone table with one support only). The first-
known memorials in the megalithic style are found in the far North (Khassia Moun-
tains), in the Central Provinces (Haidarabad, etc.), and also in the South (Nilgiri,
Anamala Mountains, the districts of Coimbatore, and Tinnevelli, etc.). The most
ancient tombs contain no examples of metal work ; those, however, that are found
in sepulchres of later date display high technical skill, and enable us to infer a
considerable advance of civilization in general (such objects are iron arrow-heads,
knives, lamps, tripods, stirrups, etc.). Fragments of burnt pottery ware, coloured
red or black, and also complete vessels are among the objects most frequently dis-
covered in these tombs. Clumsy figures in clay of men or buffaloes also occur. In
many cases the corpse was cremated and the ashes were interred in cinerary urns ;
in other cases the skeletons have remained, though rarely in a complete state of
preservation, and in most cases so disintegrated as to fall into dust upon exposure
to the air. In many cases women or men were beheaded at the funeral of a dig-
nitary and buried with him. Earely has any definite tradition of the person buried
in the grave been preserved. In Southern India these graves are known by the
population as Pandicazhay, that is, PaTidya graves, as they are ascribed to the
period of the great Pandya kingdom (p. 387) which was popularly supposed to be
of great antiquity. However, the earliest literature, Dravidian and Sanscrit alike,
has not a word to say upon the subject of these graves.
On the other hand, the poems of the Aryans, who were making their victorious
invasion of India at the dawn of history proper, provide us with much information
upon the life of the original inhabitants, who are naturally described from a hostile
point of view. They are contemptuously known as Dilsa (slaves), Dasyu (low class)
Mleccha (people talking an unintelligible jargon). They are described as being of
black complexion, their figures small and ugly, in spite of their heavy ornaments of
gold and precious stones, their noses broad, and their eyes small. They were indeed
a complete contrast to the Aryans, who must have been particularly impressed with
these points of difference in the enemy, as their own stature was tall and proud,
their complexion fair, their noses boldly formed. ("With beautiful noses" is the
title which they give to the images modelled in their own likeness.) The enemy
are said to have been driven back into the mountains, from whence they made repri-
sals, attacking the herds and the property of their oppressors as " robbers " without
harm to themselves. Magical arts were attributed to them, including the power of
drying up the streams and rivers which bring fertility and verdure to the plains.
Mysterious, also, is the power of the gods to whom they prayed; hence these
were soon considered as demons or " Yakshu," who disturbed the fire of the Aryan
sacrifices (" Simyu "), and for whom no sacred flame was ever kindled (" Kikata").
This description of the original inhabitants in the old Aryan poems entirely
corresponds with the appearance of the mountain and jungle tribes of the present
•/*ifa] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 357
i
day and also with that of the lowest classes of the population in modern India,
with the exception of the Brahman castes. Like their savage ancestors, the tribes
of the present day carry on their existence under conditions of the greatest diffi-
culty, and their general civilization is as low as their environment is rough. In
many cases their sole agricultural implement is a stick with the point hardened in
the fire, with which they grub up the scanty roots and bulbs of the jungle ; at a
somewhat higher stage of development, agriculture is carried on by burning down
a portion of the forest every year and planting in the fructifying ashes the seeds of
the native cereals or tuberous plants, a scanty harvest which ripens rapidly. The
tribe then sets out upon its wanderings to choose a new piece of forest for its next
harvest. A few goats or sheep and the small pariah dog alone accompany it ;
from the climbing plants or the bark of the trees nets are woven, the waters of the
tanks or pools are poisoned with leaves or fruits and the tribe thereby obtains
a meal of fish. The arrows of the savage wanderers lay low the forest game
which falls into their traps and snares ; wild honey provides them with the sweets
of their meal. They roast their food at a fire which is kindled by the rotatory
friction of two sticks ; comparatively few of the forest tribes have learned the art
of pottery. A roof of leaves or an overhanging rock is their shelter, an apron of
grass or leaves or of tree-bark is their clothing, the scantiness of which serves to
emphasise the weight of the ornaments with which they load every possible part
of their bodies.
Though the poverty of the life of these tribes may arouse our sympathy, yet
their character demands our hearty respect. All who have come into contact with
them and have learned their habits, praise their independent spirit, their fearless
bravery, their truth, honour, and fidelity. They are true to their plighted word,
true to their wives and to their race. The arrow of an absent chief, given by his wife
as a means of recommendation into the hands of an English ambassador, secured
for this emissary security and hospitality among all the members of this wild tribe,
even in the remotest districts.
Family life has often developed upon different lines than among modern
civilized peoples; but however much the form of marriage may have changed,
man and wife yet remain true to one another within the limits of that family life
which custom has consecrated, and woe to him who would break faith or attempt
to seduce another's wife. Both patriarchal and matriarchal organisations occur ;
that is to say, either the father or the mother may be considered as the family and
tribe. In the latter case, relationships are reckoned through the female line.
Under the patriarchal system monogamy prevails, and marriage continues until
dissolved by the death of one or other of the parties. A man acquires his wife by
purchase or capture, though the latter is only conventional in form. Only in rare
cases does the man take a second or several wives. In many cases it certainly hap-
pens that upon the completion of a marriage the husband's brothers become eo ipso
husbands of his wife (in Kurg among the Todas, Kurumbas, etc.). To be dis-
tinguished from this kind of polyandry, where the man always remains head of
the family, is the primeval custom, still prevalent among certain castes on the
Malabar coast, which allows the wife to choose her own husband, to dismiss him at
pleasure, and take another without thereby incurring any stigma. Marriages which
can be thus dissolved are entirely legitimate, as also are the children of them.
The man, however, remains a stranger to the wife's family, and the children
358 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
reckon their descent from the mother. Consequently, in these cases descent is reck-
oned through the female line, whereas in the patriarchal system descent in. the male
line is the fundamental principle of those larger social organisms, the hordes, con-
sisting of several families (Vedda, Uladen, Nayadi, etc.), which again may develop
into a tribe at a later period. In the latter case, the head of a tribe is sometimes a
hereditary chieftain, and at other times is chosen by the heads of families. He is
the representative of the tribe and directs its general policy. The tribe forms an
exceedingly close corporation in its dealings with the outer world ; attacks made
by strangers often lead to blood feuds, and peaceful intercourse and barter of goods
is conducted, as among the Vedda in Ceylon, by the so-called silent trade.
The mountain and jungle tribes are obliged to carry on a hard struggle for
existence. The climate alternates between seasons of burning heat and terrible
rain storms, and a tribe driven into the jungle or on to the thirsty plains of the
steppes obtains but scanty nourishment; often enough, even those tribes which
enjoy more favourable conditions of life are hard pressed by the extremities of
famine. In the jungle the tiger and the poisonous snake lie in wait for them ;
their scanty crops are destroyed by wild animals, elephants, pigs, and porcupines ;
leprosy, malaria, cholera, and other diseases make their way to the remotest
settlements, and Death plies his scythe with ruthless power. Encompassed as
he is by hostile powers, how could the savage conceive of the supreme beings
which guide human destinies as being friendly to man ? Evil demons pursue him
from his birth to his grave, thirsting for his blood. Everywhere they lie in wait
for him, in earth, in water, and in ah1 ; in the rocks, in the darkness of the forests,
upon the dry steppes ; at night they rush through the darkness to destroy whom-
soever they may meet. They hunger for blood and can therefore be temporarily
appeased by bloody sacrifices of fowls, goats, or even of men ; their anger can also
be averted by those magic arts which the Shaman priests employ against them in
their frenzied dances (devil's dancers). Can we be surprised that such men were
considered as demons, as Yakshu, as Rakshasa by the Aryans, whose bright and
heavenly gods were their stay and counsel ?
The most ancient Aryan poems do not, however, display to us these miserable
savages as the only opponents of the invaders ; we gain information upon other
tribes in higher stages of civilization. Together with the unsettled and nomadic
Kikata (p. 357) settled tribes also existed, the Xishada, who lived under a settled
social organisation and were even envied and hated by the Aryans for their wealth.
The gods, and especially Indra, the destroyer of cities Purandara, are constantly
praised for overthrowing hundreds of cities of the Black Dasyu; these latter
indeed are said to have possessed not only fortifications to protect them against
the enemy, but also "winter retreats," autumn rain and cloud castles on their
mountains, where they might take refuge from inundations in the plains or from
dangerous miasmas. The tribes of the Xaga who worshipped snakes were to be
destroyed on account of their wealth and valuable possessions. Their capital, in
which their Prince "Wasuki rules, is said to abound in treasures and fair women;
the prince possesses a talisman which can even bring the dead to life. " The
treasure chambers in the rocky ground are full of cattle, horses, and good things;
the warders, the Pani, arc faithful watchmen." At the same time, these tribes are
represented as cunning traders, ever ready u> take advantage, and bringing to the
Aryans for barter the products of nature's bounty or of their own skill in handi-
India
*«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 359
crafts. The trade indeed is welcome, but hateful are the traders, the "hateful
misers," the men " without faith, without honour, without victims," and Indra is
called upon to stamp down the greedy merchants with his feet. Upon the further
advance of the Aryans we learn that there were important native kingdoms in the
country and that the conquerors entered into friendly relations with these (Krishna
the black tribal prince of the Ya"dawa). When the conquerors made their way
into the central district between the Jumna and the Gauges they appointed the
King of Nishadi, a vassal of the kingdom of Ayodhya, to guard the sacred district
of the confluence of these two streams ; at a later date Aryan Brahman mission-
aries (Agastya) came upon the nourishing Pandya kingdom in the south of the
peninsula.
The old Aryan songs and myths provide no further information upon the
civilization of the more advanced native tribes ; however, the language of the dark
races who belong to the Dravidian family (p. 353) enables us to draw many
further conclusions as to the civilization to which they had attained. This lan-
guage is certainly modified by Aryan elements (Sanscrit), but the non-Aryan por-
tion of its vocabulary provides an accurate picture of the pre-Aryan civilization of
those races. According to Bishop R Caldwell, who lived among the black popu-
lation and devoted more than a generation to the study of their language, the
original vocabulary of the Dravidian races enables us to conclude that before they
came in contact with the Aryans they possessed kings who lived in permanent
dwellings and ruled over small districts. They had bards who sang songs at their
feasts, and it also appears that they were in possession of an alphabet and that they
were accustomed to write upon palm leaves with a stylus. A bundle of these
leaves formed a book. There were no idols, no hereditary priesthood, and the
primitive Dravidians appear to have been entirely unacquainted with the ideas of
Heaven or Hell, of sin, or of the soul ; however, they believed in the existence of
gods, which they named ko (king), an absolutely non-Aryan word. Temples were
erected in their honour, known as ko-il (house of god) ; no conclusions as to the
nature of their divine service can be drawn from their language. The Dravidians
of that period possessed laws, but no judges ; doubtful cases were decided by pre-
cedent. Marriage was a permanent institution among them. The most important
metals were known to them with the exception of tin, lead, and zinc, as also were
the greater planets with the exception of Mercury and Saturn. They could count
up to a hundred and in some cases to a thousand ; higher numbers, such as the
Aryan lakh (100,000) or crore (10,000,000), were unknown to them. Medicine
was practised among them, though medical science or doctors were unknown.
Hamlets and villages existed, but no large towns. Boats great and small, and even
decked ships able to keep the sea were employed ; these, however, did not cross
the ocean, and consequently foreign countries, with the exception of Ceylon, were
unknown to them, and their language appears not to recognise the difference
between continent and island. Agriculture was a professional occupation, while
war was their chief delight, their arms being bows and arrows, swords and shields.
Manufactures were highly developed, especially the arts, of spinning, weaving, and
dyeing, and their pottery had been highly perfected, as is indeed plain from the
examples found in the graves. Little was known of the higher arts and sciences ;
no word exists to signify Sculpture or Architecture, Astronomy or Astrology,
Philosophy or Grammar. Indeed their vocabulary is singularly lacking in words
360 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {.Chapter iv
which imply intellectual pursuits; their only word for spirit is "diaphragm" or
" the inside ; " there certainly exists a Dravidian word for to think, but no special
words for thought, judgment, consciousness, or will.1 As against this last sentence,
we must not, however, forget that the overpowering influence of the Brahmans and
their highly developed terminology for abstract mental operations may very well
have superseded many native expressions. Comparative philology does not provide
wholly conclusive results even in religious matters, and a comparison of those
elements common to the early Vedda and to all Dtuvidian races, even to those at
a high stage of civilization, plainly shows that the fundamental beliefs and
religious conceptions of the jungle tribes were not confined to those we have
mentioned, but were the common property of Dravidian religious thought and
practice from the very outset.
There can be no doubt that the Aryans found the dark-skinned race in posses-
sion of the country upon their advance into India ; the only question is whether
this race belonged to the Kolarian or the Dravidian group. Weighty evidence can
be adduced to show that the chief mass of the population belonged to the Dravidian
group ; especially significant is the fact that offshoots of the Dravidiau languages
have advanced further than the Kolarian group into the linguistic area of the
Aryan languages. In the extreme northwest the Brahui appear, in spite of long
isolation and strong influence exercised by different surrounding languages, to have
preserved a number of Dravidian elements in their tongue ; in East India the
Dravidian races extend further north than the scattered Kolarian groups; for
instance, the Paharia and Kajmahali are more northerly than the Santhals and
Juangs, and in Central India the Hos, Mundas, Bhumij, and Gonds are more
northerly than the Kurku. Upon the whole the linguistic characteristics of the
Kolarians, though their language has not yet been thoroughly investigated, appear
to extend rather eastward toward Farther India ; in this direction they live in
more coherent groups, whereas upon the west their settlements occur more sporadi-
cally and give the impression of colonies planted by a people who had entered the
country from the east. Further evidence for the Dravidian connection of the
pre-Aryan inhabitants of India would be gained if the theory of individual philolo-
gists could be proved, which would assume the immigration of the Dravidians from
the northwest on the ground of their close linguistic affinities with the Ural-
Altaic group. However, this sweeping assumption is as yet unsupported by
sufficient evidence upon the philological side; the points of resemblance are in
some cases wholly isolated and therefore, perhaps, fortuitous, though in other
respects a general resemblance can be noted ; moreover the physical characteristics
of the race pronounce so decisively against their connection with the Mongolian
peoples as to invalidate the probability of this hypothesis. Under these limitations,
then, whatever view may be taken of the prehistoric period in India, the fact
remains that the dark-complexioned inhabitants of the country, of whom the
Dravidians were by far the strongest element, formed the original population
of India.
(y8) The Iranian- Indian Aryans in their Original Abode. — In the year 1833
Franz Bopp, observing the close connection of Sanscrit, the language of the
1 A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages ; second edition.
L >udon, 1875.
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 361
Brahmans (p. 415), with most of the ancient and modern languages of Europe, was
.able to establish the affinity of these languages beyond all dispute. He pointed
out that Sanscrit was closely related not only to the old Persian (Zend) but also
to almost all the other languages of Europe, the only exceptions being the Basque
•and certain isolated groups of Ural-Altaic languages in the north and east of
Europe. How was this similarity to be explained ? Peoples thus connected by
the tie of language might easily be conceived as connected by the tie of blood,
that is, as descended from a common ancestral tribe ; and Aug. Pott, Christian
Lassen, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and others lent their support to the theory
that this primitive people had lived in Asia, a supposition which became almost an
article of faith. The ancestral tribe there settled was said to have been gradually
broken up, the component parts migrating in different directions, for the most part
westward, even as the solar system is conceived to have been formed by the sepa-
ration of the planets and their satellites from the primal nebula. At a later period
the influence of the Darwinian theory made the genealogical table illustrating
these descents somewhat more complex; however, the*idea that Asia has been the
common cradle of these " Indo-Germanic " or " Aryan " families of peoples con-
tinued to maintain its ground. In more recent times philological and anthro-
pological evidence has led investigators to place the common origin of all these
peoples in one or another part of Europe and this theory is to-day supported by the
large majority of philologists, ethnologists, and anthropologists.
We may, indeed, doubt the intrinsic probability of the fact that any single
•district of the enormous steppe country extending from Central Asia to the North
.Sea could have been the cradle of so large a family of peoples. Natural bounda-
ries are unknown upon the steppes, and the peoples inhabiting them spread outward
without let or hindrance. The nomads inhabiting those districts prefer to follow
the natural changes of season, climate, and consequently of vegetation, wandering
abroad at their will and pleasure. The language of the Yakuts in the northeast of
Siberia is closely connected with that of the Ottomans in the extreme southwest
of that great continent. It is waste of time to inquire at what point the first immi-
grants entered the steppe district. It is highly probable that as soon as a tribe
had secured a footing there it did not confine its movements to a small district,
but finding no barriers to oppose its passage, rapidly extended its settlements over
•a wide, area in uniform development, though sporadic distribution. Not until then
did isolation of position, difference of environment, and foreign influence begin to
produce divergences in physical characteristics, language, and customs. Thus in
different provinces similar peoples, occupying widely distributed settlements, devel-
oped into individual tribes more or less strongly differentiated. In 1872 Johannes
Schmidt conceived the development of the Indo-Germanic languages in the fol-
lowing manner : " I should like to replace the genealogical tree by a diagram of
waves expanding in concentric circles at a distance from a central point, the rings
becoming weaker in proportion to the distance to which they spread from the cen-
tral point." With some such theory the facts as known to us most nearly coincide,
in so far as the peoples and the languages in close local connection show stronger
mutual affinity than those at a remoter distance. The development of Indo-Ger-
manic peoples conceived as occurring in concentric waves is shown in order of
development by the rough diagram on p. 362.
The westerly development of the wave circles after radiation from the central
362 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [c^tcr ir
point does not concern us here, and we need only follow the history of the most
eastern, or Indo-Iranian group. Our investigation into the date, locality, and the
mode of life of this original circle depends upon information derived from com-
parative philology, and from the traditions and the earliest literature of the peoples
which have proceeded from this centre. Such an investigation will show that the
two peoples of the Iranians and Indians, between whom all outward connection
has now disappeared, broke away from their common centre only a few thousand
years before the outset of historical chronology. The comparatively late date of
this separation is proved not only by the close similarity of the old Iranian lan-
guage (Zend) to the language of the earliest Indian hymns, but also by the wide
ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE 1NDO-GERMANIC PEOPLES (See p. 361)
similarities existing in manners and customs, especially those concerned with reli-
gion, language, mythology, and worship. Both peoples are called by the same
proud name of Aryans (Arya, Airyu), the noble, or the lofty ; in both peoples the
arrival of the youth at man's estate was marked by the custom of girding him with
a string. Botli religions contain the same names for the deities worshipped, —
Mitra, Indra, Siva, Yama (Yima), A sura (Ahura-Mazdah). However, the deep
gulf dividing the two peoples is apparent in the different manner in which these
beliefs have developed: the gods worshipped by the Indian branch as the chief
deities have sunk to low estate and lost their sanctity among the Iranians; the
bright, shining, glorious, all-helping Indra of the old Indian faith and the great
god (Mahadeva) Siva became in the Persian pantheon evil-minded gods or hostile
demons, as does Asura in India. The figures of the gods have remained unchanged
and only the faces have been altered, while to the highest deities the same sacri-
ficial drink, the sama (haoma) is still offered.
The traditions and the language of the two peoples point to a former common
settlement in the north, and there is good reason for accepting the generally
received theory which considers their early home as situated in the land watered
by the < )xus and the Jaxartes (Amu Daria and Sir Daria). The civilization of
this early settlement can be inferred in its general features from the vocabulary in
***»] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 363
use by its descendants. As might be expected in a country of steppes, the chief
food supply depended upon cattle breeding. The wealth of the population con-
sisted in herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, and in the keeping of these flocks the
dog was the faithful companion of man. The horse was also bred, but only for
traction, not for riding purposes. War chariots drawn by horses played an impor-
tant part in the struggles of the Aryans upon their immigration to India. The
possession of wagons enables us to conclude that the Indo-Iranians were nofc
exclusively a shepherd people. The fact that they were able to build houses of
wood, and that their animals were driven into permanent courtyards, justifies the
conclusion that they were to some extent a settled race. The cultivation of cereal
plants, barley, wheat, and millet was common throughout the Indo-Germanic family
in primitive times. Most probably when the Aryans entered the fertile district of
the Five Rivers they had already acquired the knowledge and practice of regular
irrigation from experience on the banks of the Oxus and Jaxartes. Cattle breeding
provided their chief sustenance (milk and flesh, for fish was not eaten), as also
their clothing (wool and skins). Of metals, copper and bronze were known, while
iron is rarely mentioned. Horn was used more often than bronze for the arrow-
heads, which the Aryans smeared with poison. Besides the bow and arrow, their
offensive weapons included the club, the axe, the sword, and the spear. There
must have been a considerable amount of peaceful intercourse. Straight roads
existed traversed by wagons drawn by horses, while rafts and rowing boats passed
over the rivers ; commerce by barter was established, and hospitality readily granted
to the stranger who came in peace. Generally speaking, the morality of the Indo-
Iranians reached a high pitch of perfection. Family life was pure; the relations
of the members of the race among themselves were regulated by established cus-
tom, which insisted upon truthfulness and good faith ; in their dealings with foes
the race were high-spirited, bold, and warlike. The father was the head of the
family, but the wife also was highly respected and honoured. At the head of the
tribe or community, the chief or ruler, the " king," was placed not only to conduct
the temporal affairs of his tribe, but also to represent the tribe before the powers
of heaven. There was no special priestly class, but the whole people was inspired
with a profound religious feeling.
(b) The First Stage of Aryan Immigration into the Punjab. — We have no
knowledge of those causes which induced the Indian Aryans to migrate from their
original settlements. Increase of the population above the number that the land
could permanently support, the hostile attacks of other steppe tribes, either of
remote Indo-Germanic peoples from the west or nomadic Mongolian tribes from
the east and north, those internal dissensions which ultimately led to the definite
separation of the Iranian and Indian branches, possibly also the reports of the
fabulous fertility of a great land on the south, — any or all of these causes may
have led to a great national movement. For this, of course, no accurate date can
be given ; modern experts are inclined to place it about the middle of the third
millennium B. c., or considerably earlier.
(a) The Route of Migration. — The route followed by the migrating people led
southward. Here, indeed, they were confronted by a high mountain wall, — the
Hindukush and the Pamirs ; but these districts could easily be traversed by a
364 HISTORY OF THE WORLD c/^v ir
hardy mountain-bred shepherd people, who would be able to drive their flocks over
these chains and to reach the plains beyond, the fertility of which must have
seemed an attractive paradise to a people of the steppes, hard pressed by the stern
necessities of existence. It is by no means improbable that the Indian Aryans
may have entered the country both by the Pamirs and the Hindukush. At a point
further eastward they could without difficulty have crossed by Chitral or Gilgit t»>
the Indus and the lovely district of Kashmir, as well as to the upper Punjab. The
western road over the Hindukush led them into the Cabul district of Northern
Afghanistan. Here the earliest of their extant sacred hymns seem to have been
composed ; here also the last links between the Iranian and Indian branches of
the Aryans may have been severed. From the frontiers of the Afghan highland
the spectator could behold the fruitful plains of the Five Eiver Land, and an
advance to the plains through the natural passes of the mountain wall was easy.
It was no doubt by this route that the main branch of this race reached its new
home, though not, however, in one great column, but in detachments, tribe follow-
ing tribe at long intervals. Powerful was the impression made upon those who
crossed the mountain range reaching to the heavens, and long did the recollection
of those snowclad peaks remain among the people ; they alone were considered
worthy to support the throne of the gods on high.
Magnificent also were the results of the migration when the Aryans arrived
in the Punjab, that district watered, with what was to them an inconceivable
abundance, by streams swollen with rain and melting snow, — a guarantee of inex-
haustible fertility. The poets sang the praises of these rivers with high enthusi-
asm, especially those of the Indus, the Saraswati of the Vedas, which unites the
waters of the five streams flowing eastward and bears them to the sea. The
Vitasta (Jihlam), Asikni (Chenab), the Marudvridha rejoicing in the wind (Kavi),
the Vipa£ (Beyah), and the Sutudri (Sutlej), these are the rivers that cross the
district named from their number, Five Kiver Land, the Pantshauada. The poet
also sings of the land of the seven streams (Sapta Sindhavas), adding to the Five
Kivers, from the memories of the long migration, the Cabul Eiver from the west,
and the Saraswati, the chief of the seven sisters.
Not without a struggle did this fair land fall into the hands of the immigrants ;
the dark-skinned inhabitants whom they found in possession (p. 352) did not
tamely surrender. The Vedas of that period ring with the din of battle and the
cry of victory ; the great gods of the Aryan heaven are called upon to strike down
the wicked Dasyu, and are praised with cheerful thanks for overthrowing hundreds
of the cities of the despised and miserable slaves, the Dasa. Serious friction occa-
sionally occurred between different tribes of the same race when newcomers
demanded their share of the conquered territory. The Aryan masses pressed suc-
cessively further eastward. We can trace their advance from their resting place
on the heights of the Afghan frontier to the Jumna (Yamuna), the most western
<>f the Ganges streams, across Five Eiver Land. This river is often named in the
later Vedas, but the Ganges not more than once or twice. Such an upheaval of
the different tribes, and so great a rivalry for the possession of the fertile soil,
must necessarily have led to collisions. Many tribes and their kings are mentioned
by name, especially the federation of the " Five Peoples " in the north of Five
River Land, the Yadu and Turvasa, the Druhyu and Aim, together with the Puru,
who were situated farthest inland on the banks of the main stream, and headed
"H HISTORY OF THE WORLD 365
the confederacy, which originally included the two first-named tribes, and after-
ward the third and fourth. Beyond the boundaries of these five confederate peoples
who inhabited Arya Varta, or Aryan land proper, the Tritsu, a branch of the
powerful ambitious warrior tribe of the Bharata, advanced eastward, and bloody
conflicts arose between them and the western peoples of the Punjab. The allied
tribes were driven back, were confined henceforward to Five Kiver Land, and
gradually lost their common interests and the consciousness of their kinship with
those of the Aryans who extended further eastward. Most of them disappear from
our view ; only the Puru (King Porus) held out for a long time on the Indus.
(/3) Progress in Civilization. — In the general civilization of those Aryans
who migrated into Five Eiver Land, that progress may everywhere be observed
which is connected with a higher development of agriculture and results in greater
prosperity, greater security, and greater expansion in other directions. The
Aryans now no longer lived a nomadic life on the boundary steppes, but were set-
tled in permanent habitations upon arable territory, with well-defined boundaries.
Cattle breeding continued to be vigorously pursued ; the ox was the unit of value,,
not only for purposes of trade, but also for estimating the rank of individuals ;
the title of a tribal chief was even then "Possessor of Cows" (gopati), and battle
is still called " desire for cows " (gawishti). Milk, either fresh or in the form
of buttermilk, cream, butter, and curds, was still the staple article of food ; the
flesh of domestic animals was rarely eaten, and hunting was carried on chiefly
as a sport, or for protection against wild beasts, while fish as an article of food
was still despised. A flesh diet was replaced by the use of corn, chiefly of
barley, to a less extent of wheat, while rice is not yet mentioned. The plough
and sickle were more important implements than of yore. Corn was threshed,
pounded in the hand-mill by the women, and made into bread or cakes or por-
ridge. The house was now a permanent habitation and built on a new and
stronger plan. A roof of vegetable fibres, tree bark, or straw kept out the rain ; in
the centre of the main room blazed the hearth, round which seats were arranged
(probably of earth as at present) ; these were covered with animal skins and
served as sleeping-places. Earthenware pots, brazen caldrons, and hand-mills for
the corn were the most important kitchen utensils. Close to the house stood the
fenced yard where the herds were penned, and in which the threshing-floor was
laid out. The house was the special care of the woman ; here she cooked food
for the whole family, spun the wool for thread, and wove artistic fabrics ; here
she made beautifully adorned cloaks of the skins of the animals killed; here
under her care grew up the daughters and small boys. The man's business
lay outside in the field, on the pasture and the corn land, at hunting or in war.
It was his part to ply the handicrafts which were now increasing in number
and rising to a higher level of skill; the wagon builder made strong vehicles,
the smith blew up his fire with a fan made of bird's feathers, and wrought
not only bronze, but also the iron which the original inhabitants probably brought
to him in its raw condition, after smelting it out of the ore (the native Indian
form of pocket bellows does not seem to have been in use among the Aryans) ;
the goldsmith produced bright decorations, artistic plates, bracelets, and rings to
be worn in the ears, round the neck, and upon the wrists and ankles of the
women.
366 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The relations of man and wife were regulated by sound moral principles. To
bring forth sons, worthy members of a tribe and an honour to the parents, was the
highest ambition and the greatest pride of the father and mother. Respected, and
on an equality with her husband, the woman was mistress" of the house, though
the man as being the stronger was the natural head, protector, and leader of the
family. The man wooed the maiden on whom his choice had fallen through
friends and relations ; if his suit was approved of by the girl's parents, the mar-
riage took place before the hearth of the house in which the maiden had lived
hitherto under the protection of her parents. The bridegroom took the girl's
hand and led her three times round the hearth; the newly married pair were then
conveyed to their new home in a chariot drawn by white steers, the former cere-
mony was repeated and a meal in common concluded the festival. Polygamy was
exceedingly rare, while polyandry was utterly unknown to the ancient Aryans.
If a death took place in a house, the body was buried or burnt (interment in both
forms is mentioned in the early Yedas) ; widows never followed their dead hus-
bands into death, either voluntarily or as a matter of social custom.
The houses stood in groups, forming separate hamlets or villages. Some of
these places were fortified against hostile attacks by walls of earth or stone (place
names ending in pur meaning fortified) ; men and animals were often obliged to
flee into fortified settlements, which were usually uninhabited, before the outbreak
of floods or hostile incursions. A group of villages formed a larger community,
while several of these latter became a district. The district belonging to one
tribe formed a corporate whole, each of these groups having its own special chief,
while at the head of the whole stood the king (Kajan, the " reigning ") ; his title
was hereditary, or he might be elected, but in either case a new king must be re-
cognised in the general assembly (samiti) of all men capable of bearing arms.
In the samiti were discussed all those matters which affected the whole tribe,
especially questions of war and peace. The inhabitants of the district or the
village met together in special halls (sabha), which served not only for purposes of
discussion and judgment, but also for conversation, and for social amusements,
such as dice playing. As the race was thus organised for the purposes of peace, so
also the army, composed of all men capable of bearing arms, was made up of divi-
sions corresponding to the family, village, and district group, each under its own
leader. Famous warriors fought in their own war chariots harnessed witli two
horses and driven by a charioteer, while the main body of the people fought
on foot.
The king was the leader in war; he was also the representative of his people
before the gods ; in the name of the people he asked for help or offered praise and
sacrifice. He was allowed in certain cases to be represented by a Purohita, who
conducted the sacrifice, while any one who possessed high poetical gifts and a dig-
nified appearance might permanently occupy this position. Other nobles, princes
of districts, etc., might appoint Purohitas, whose influence was increased in pro-
portion as formal prayer took the place of extempore petitions, and worship became
stereotyped by the growth of special uses and u lixed ceremonial. Here we have
in embryo the separate classes of king and priesthood, an opposition which was to
exercise the most far-reaching influence upon the further development of the
Aryan people (cf. p. 373).
Ind
»] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 367
(7) The Religion of the . Indian Aryans in the Punjab. — The Aryan
people brought from their primal home one precious possession, a deep religious
feeling, a thankful reverence for the high powers presiding over nature, who
.afforded them a secure and peaceful existence by assuring the continued welfare
of the flocks and of the crops planted by man. The good and kindly gods were
those who sent to man the fertilising rain and sunshine, bringing growth and
produce, and to them, as to high and kindly friends, man offered his faithful
prayers and pious vows. To them he prayed that his flocks might thrive, and that
he might be victorious in battle, that lie might be given sons and have long life ;
they, the bright, the all-knowing, and the pure, were the protectors of morality and
the wardens of the house, of the district, and of the whole tribe. Certain
gods belonging to primeval times appeared in the Pantheon of the Aryans who
conquered live Kiver district ; Aditya, the " Infinite," Mitra and Varuna, the
Great Spirit Asura (the Ahuramazdah of the Iranians), Aryaman, etc., bright
figures, which were still worshipped in common by the Iranians and the Indian
Aryans. But among these latter they grow pale and lose their firm outlines, like
the misty figures of dim remembrance; they become many-sided, secret, un-
canny, diabolical (Asura) ; and other gods of more definite character come into
prominence.
Three gods are of special importance, Indra, Surya and Agni. Together they
form the early Indian Trinity (Trimitrti). In the hymns which have come down
to us, liidra is most frequently mentioned ; he was the atmospherical god, espe-
cially favourable to the Aryans, who gave the rain and the harvest, and governed
the winter and the thunder storm. We can easily understand how the god of the
atmosphere became the chief Aryan divinity ; as the Aryans learnt upon Indian
soil to observe the regular recurrence of atmospherical phenomena, especially that
of the monsoon winds and the thunder storms upon which their prosperity de-
pended, the deeper and stronger became their gratitude and reverence to this god.
It is Indra who sends down the water of the heaven, who divides the clouds with
the lightning flash before which blow the roaring winds, the Maruts, especially the
fierce Eudra, the hurricane, which rushes immediately before the black thunder
clouds. As Indra's flash divides the clouds, so also does it overthrow the citadels
of the enemy and strike down the wretched Dasyu by thousands in the battle.
Thus this god protects the Aryan race, which celebrates his worship in thankful-
ness with sacrifice (the Soma drink) and with hymns of praise. The second of
the three chief gods is Sftrya, the bright sun god, giving light, warmth, and life, an
object of high veneration. Ushas, the morning dawn, opens for him the doors
through which he passes to traverse the heavens in his chariot with its seven red
horses. After these two gods the third of importance is Agni, the fire born from
sticks when rubbed together ; this god lights and warms the hearth of the house,
drives away all things evil and impure, and watches over the morality of the
household. As the sacrificial flame upon the altars, he is the means of communi-
cation between mankind and the other gods; in his destructive character he
devastates the settlements of the enemy and the hiding places of their demons
in the depths of the forest.
The worship of these gods is characterised by a feeling of lofty independence.
Not only does man receive gifts from them, but he also gives them what they need.
They, indeed, prepare for themselves the draught of immortality, the Amrita ; but
368 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [c/^,, /r
they hunger for sacrifices and cannot do without them. Especially do the gods
love the honey-sweet draught of Soma ; l they press forward eagerly to the sacri-
ficial flame in which the draught is poured which gives even Indra himself the
courage for great deeds and the energy of victorious and heroic power. Almost
presumptuous appears to us the prayer in which Indra is invited to partake of the
Soma offering : " Ready is the summer draught, 0 Indra, for thee ; may it fill thee
with strength ! drink the excellent draught which cheers the soul and conveys im-
mortality ! hither, O Indra, to drink with joy of the juice which has been pressed
for thee ; intoxicate thyself, O hero, for the slaughter of thy foes ! sit thou upon
my seat ! here, 0 good one, is juice expressed ; drink thyself full, for to thee, dread
lord, do we make offering." Though Indra is here invited in person, yet the personi-
fications of early Indian mythology were much less definite than those of the
Greeks. Imagination and expression vary between the terms of human existence
and the abstract conceptions of the natural powers of fire, thunder, sunshine, etc.
Consequently the god as such is somewhat vague and intangible in the mythology
of the old Aryans of India; the characteristics of one deity are confused with
those of another and the different attributes of any one god often reappear as
separate personifications. The mythological spirit, with the legends which it
creates, is confined within narrow limits, and the genealogy of the gods in no way
resembles the family picture observable in the Greek Olympus (Vol. IV, p. 269).
A large number of the hymns to the gods have been preserved to us (1,017
in all) ; these form the earliest body of evidence upon Indian life, thought, and
feeling. The earliest of these songs were undoubtedly sung by the Aryans upon
their migrations, when they invoked the protection and help of the gods to enable
them to reach their goal ; new songs were composed on the banks of Five River
land and during the further advance into the Ganges territory. At first the unpre-
meditated outpourings of a pious heart, they gradually became formal prayers ;
thus these hymns were preserved in families of bards and faithfully handed down
from generation to generation until at a much later period they were reduced to
writing. Such at any rate was the origin of the earliest collection (samhitS) of
the sacred books, the Rig-Veda (ric means song or poem; veda means sacred
knowledge), and at a later period the more modern Vedas. The length of the
period in the course of which these songs arose is shown by their many linguistic
divergences, and also by the great difference in the phases of thought which they
reveal. In many of the Vedas belonging to the earliest period we find a deep
longing for truth, a struggle for the solution of the deepest mysteries of existence,
in short, a speculative spirit of that nature which marks a later stage of Brahman
development; other songs, however, are pure and simple prayers for victory,
children, and long life, while others again contain promises of sacrifice and praise if
the help of the gods should be granted. The general collection of all these hymns
was made at a considerably later period, subsequently to the occupation of the
Ganges territory, and not before the seventh century B.C.
(c) The Expansion of the Aryans in the Ganges Territory. — The most impor-
tant events at the conclusion of the Vedic age took place on the frontier line
between the Indus and the Ganges. Here certain special characteristics were
In Hindi a certain plant (Sarcostemma brevistigma) is still called Som or Soma.
/*««] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 369
developed which were afterward to lead to important results; we speak of the
opposition between the warrior and priestly classes. At the head of the allied
tribes in the Punjab stands the proud King Visivamitra, who combines the func-
tions of king and priest in his own person and invokes the help of the gods for his
people. Among his adversaries, however, the King Sudas no longer commits the
duties of prayer and sacrifice to his own priests, but to a special class, the white-
clothed, long-haired priests of the Vasishtha family, and their prayers are more
effectual than those of the priest-king. This event is typical of the second stage
of early Indian development, which ends in the complete victory of the priests
over the warrior class and the establishment of a rigid hierarchy. The date of
this social change coincides with that of the expansion and establishment of the
Aryans in the Ganges' territory.
(a) Historical Evidences — The MaMbhdrata. — The sacred books are of less
value for the external history of this period than are the songs of the Eig-Veda for
the preceding age; nevertheless many of them, such as the Brahmanas, contain
important evidence concerning individual tribes, their settlements and history.
A large body of historical evidence is, however, contained in the second great epic
poems of this period, the Mahabharata and the Eamayana (see p. 496, below) ; the
riotous imagination of the composers has given a strong poetical colouring to
the whole, and the lack of definite purpose which is apparent in their construction
makes careful and minute criticism imperative.
The Mahabharata in its present state is the longest poem of any people or age.
It contains one hundred and ten thousand double lines (slokas) ; and each one of
its eighteen books is enough to fill a large volume. The historical basis of the
great poem of the Bharata (p. 364) rests upon early tradition. The enthusiasm
inspired by heroic deeds found its vent in poetical composition, and the praise of
heroes was passed from mouth to mouth. Thus epic poems in embryo may be
earlier than the first one thousand years B. c., but when that period of turmoil and
confusion was followed by an age of more peaceful development, the memories
of these exploits grew fainter in the minds of successive generations ; the old
songs and ballads were collected and worked into one great epos ; many of the
events and of the figures are the additions of later poets (such as the story of the
Five Pandu brothers), while the whole poem is marked by the brilliant overflow
of a luxuriant imagination and by ruthless compression of the historical facts;
the histories of nations become the victories or defeats of individual heroes ; long
years of struggle with warlike tribes are reduced to one lengthy battle. To this
quasi-historical part of the Mahabharata were added at a later time a series of
lays more extensive than the original poem and written from the Brahman point
of view. If the non-epic elements be removed from the poem the following story
remains.
At the point where the two streams of the Jumna and the Ganges leave the
mountains and flow through the plains, the powerful Bharata tribe of the Kuru
had established themselves upon their eastern and western banks; even to-day,
the district on the right bank of the Jumna is known as the Kuru-kshetra the
sacred Kuru land. This royal tribe divided into two branches. Of the two sons
of King Santanu the elder, Dhritara"shtra was born blind, and the royal power was
therefore conferred upon his younger brother Pandu. To the latter five sons were
VOL. 11 — 24
370 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
born and to the former one hundred, and the struggles of these two groups of
cousins (Kaurawas-Pandawas) formed the substratum of the epic. All these
brothers were admirably instructed in knightly pursuits by the Brahman Drona
" in the use of the bow and club, of the battle axe and the throwing spear, of the
sword and dagger, in the chase of the horse and elephant, in conflicts from chariots
or on foot, man to man or in combination." In the elder line (Kuru) Duryodhana,
the eldest of the one hundred brothers, was especially distinguished for his skill
in the use of the club ; Bhima, the second son of Pandu, was famous for his super-
human strength. The third son of Pandu, the beautiful long-haired Arjuua,
excelled with all arms, but especially in the use of the bow and arrow. In one of
the tournaments which concluded the education of the princes he outstripped all
competitors; after a contest with many other princes, he won the hand of the
beautiful Krishna ("The Black") the daughter of Drupada, the king of Pantshala.
By his victory she also became the wife of the other four brothers, a polyandric
marriage which is represented by the Brahman poet as the result of a misun-
derstanding with the mother of the PaTidu brothers.
Duryodhana, who had meanwhile been crowned king, dreading the military
power of his cousins and of the Pantshala with whom they had allied themselves
by marriage, divided his kingdom with the eldest of the Pandu brothers, Prince
Yudhishthira. At the moment of his coronation Yudhishthira played a game of
dice with the enemies of his house, the Kaurawas, in which he lost not only his
crown, but also the freedom of himself and his brothers, and the wife whom they
possessed in common. But by the decision of the blind old prince Dhritarashtra
the forfeit was commuted for a banishment of thirteen years. The Pandu brothers
with their wife spent this period in solitude, need, and misery in the forests, and
then demanded their share of the kingdom. To this proposition the Kaurawas
declined to agree, and both parties secured the support of numerous powerful
allies. The Kaurawas were joined by Kama (a second Siegfried or Achilles),
who distinguished himself in these battles by his splendid bravery and military
prowess; the Panda was enjoyed the advantage of the cunning advice of the
Ya"dawa prince, Krishna, who placed his services as charioteer at the disposal
of Arjuna. A fearful battle ensued of eighteen days' duration, in which, after
marvellous deeds of heroism, all the warriors were slain with the exception of the
five Pandu brothers. From this time onward the whole of the kingdom was in
their power, and Yudhishthira ruled for a long period after the manner of an
ideal Brahman prince. Thereupon they retired from all earthly splendour and
became ascetics with no temporal needs, wandering from one holy shrine to
another, until at length they entered the heaven of the gods opposite the holy
Mountain of Meru.
However large an element of the Mahabharata may be purely poetical, none
the less the poem enables us to localise with some accuracy a number of the tribes
which were actively or passively involved in the struggle of the two royal houses,
and the overthrow of the warrior class to which that struggle led. Of the warrior
class the chief representatives are the Kuru, who are represented as settled on the
upper course of the Jumna and Ganges, Hastinapura being their capital town (see
the map, p. 430) ; they were also in occupation of the sacred Kuru land to the
west of the Jumna as far as the point where the Saraswnti disappears in the sands
of the desert. The poem places the Pandu and their capital of Indraprastha (the
UJ
O
O
UJ
£
H
2
O
C/3
U
or
CQ
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 371
modern Delhi on the Jumna) in the central Duab (the central district between
the Jumna and the Ganges) ; in the lower Duab is settled a federation of live
tribes, the Pautshala. Opposite these on the western bank of the Jumna dwell
the Siirasena, while to the east beyond the Ganges are the Kosala (capital town
Gogra) who extended their power after the destruction of the Kuru and Pfmdu,
their later capital of Ayodhya becoming a focus of Brahman civilization. Below
the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges, the sacred Prayaga, where at an earlier
period Pratisthtina (Allahabad) had become a centre for pilgrimages, the northern
bank of the main stream was occupied by the Bharata tribe of the Matsya, while
to the southeast of these in the district of the modern Benares J lived the Kasi ; on
the southern bank the native tribe of the Nishada formed a defence against the
Aryan tribes in the north. East and north of the Ganges together with the Kosala
were also settled the mountain tribes of the Kirata who were in alliance with the
Kuru, while further to the south were the Pundra Banga and Anga, the Mithila,
the Wideha (Tirhit), and Magadha.
The action of the great epic poem is laid within the district of these various
tribes. Several centuries must have elapsed since the battle of King Sudas, during
•which the Aryans had formed States in the fruitful central district, the Madhya-
•desa, and had extended to that tributary of the Ganges now known as the Garuti.
In the earlier period of Indian antiquity, the chief historical events take place in
the country between the Ganges and its great western tributary the Jumna ;
whereas at a later period pure Brahman civilization is developed in the kingdoms
formed further to the east, namely north of the Gauges in Wideha (capital town
Mithila, the modern Muzaffarpur) and upon the southern bank of the great river,
in Magadha and Wihara (the modern Behar ; capital town P& taliputra, the modern
Patna). During this period at any rate the eastern frontier of these States was
also the eastward limit of Aryan occupation. That national movement ceased at
the point where the first arms of the great delta of the Ganges diverge from the
southern bank of the river behind the mountains of Rajinahal; the almost impene-
trable malarial swamp districts which then composed the whole delta remained for
a long period in the undisputed possession of the wild jungle tribes and noxious
and poisonous animals. However, the last offshoots of the stream of Aryan
immigration turned southward to the fertile districts of Orissa from Magadha, at
the period when Brahmanism had reached its culminating point. Here the north-
•eastern arms of the Mahanadi delta mark the extreme limit of the territory then
in Aryan occupation, which consequently extended to the sea upon the east (see
the map, p. 430).
At a yet earlier period the Aryans had reached the Western Sea (the Arabian
Sea). Immediately after the occupation of Five Ptiver Land, the waves of the
migration passed down the Indus valley and the Aryans became acquainted with
the districts at the mouth of the river, to which also they gave its name ( Siiidhu).
Their settlements in that district did not, however, become a point of departure
for transmarine migration (cf. section 6 of this volume). The coast was ill-suited
for the navigators of the period, and a far more favourable spot was found further
to the southwest in the Gulf of Cambay (p. 346 above) ; settlements were made
here at a period considerably subsequent to the arrival at the mouth of the Indus.
1 See the plate, " Benares on the Ganges."
372 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
The Great Desert and the unhealthy swamps which intervene between this gulf
and the Indus district prevented any advance in that direction ; moreover an easier
route was discovered by the tribes advancing from Five Eiver Land to the Ganges
district along the narrow frontier between both territories. Consequently new
arrivals found the laud already occupied by settlers who had taken this route, and
bloody conflicts may have been of repeated occurrence. Driven on by tribes ad-
vancing in their rear, hemmed in before by earlier settlers, they found a favour-
able opening of escape in the strip of fertile territory which extended southward
between the Desert and the northwestern slopes of the central Indian Highlands
(the Aravalli Hills) ; this path could not fail to bring them to the Gulf of Cambay,
which here runs far inland, and, on its western shores, the rich districts of Gujerat
and those at the mouth of the Narbada (Xarmada) and the Tapti lay spread before
them. This was the most southerly point on the western side of India at which
the Aryans made any permanent settlement.
Hence during this period Aryan India included the whole of the northwestern
plains extending in a southwesterly direction as far as Gujerat, and eastward as
far as the Ganges delta, its extreme southeasterly point being the delta of Orissa.
The Highlands of Central India formed a sharp line of demarcation between the
Aryan and Dravidian races. The district was, however, not entirely secluded from
Aryan influence, which at the outset of that period had begun to put out feelers
across the frontier line. The Aryans had already become acquainted with the sea,
which was for them rather a means than a hindrance to communication ; the fact
is proved by the similes occurring in the old battle songs, wherein the hard-pressed
warrior is compared to a sailor upon a ship staggering under a heavy storm upon
the open sea. The Aryan colonisation of Ceylon took place before the power of
the warrior class had been broken and the social organism stamped with the im-
press of Brahmanism (see p. 496).
On comparing this period with that during which the Aryans advanced into
Five Eiver Land, we find a fundamental change in the conditions of Aryan life as
they are displayed in all these struggles and settlements. Nomadic life under the
patriarchal system is replaced by feudal principalities surrounded with all the
splendour of chivalry. Changes in other conditions of life had necessarily effected
a fundamental transformation in the political and social condition of the people.
A more settled life, and the advance of agriculture at the expense of cattle breed-
ing led to a more comprehensive subdivision of labour; though when occasion
demanded, the peasant left the ploughshare for the sword, yet it was no doubt at
an early period that that warrior nobility arose which made war its business and
profession. The leadership of the tribe as the latter flourished and increased be-
came rather a professional post ; in place of the tribal elder, who originally was
merely primus inter pares, appears the king in possession of full royal powers and
standing high above and apart from his people. The position of both king and
noble must have advanced to more brilliant development in the greater area of the
Ganges territory. In the Mahabhfirata the battles and the names connected with
them are no doubt in large part the result of poetical invention; but the descrip-
tion of the civilization then existent cannot be wholly imaginary, and the royal
courts with their knightly organisation, however romantic in appearance and akin
t" the institutions of mediieval Europe, may be considered as definite historical
facts.
Indi
*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 373
(/?) Political and Social Changes, — No greater change can be imagined than
that apparent in the later condition of those peoples whose history we have traced
throughout this proud and warlike period. Gone is the energy of youth ; gone, too,
the sparkling joys of life and struggle ; the green verdure of the Aryan spring has
faded, the people has grown old. The nobility has yielded the pride of place to
the priesthood, whose ordinances shackle all movement toward freedom and inde-
pendence. The new power appears in the garb of deepest poverty, but its spiritual
influence is all the more profound ; the ambition of the priests was not to be kings,
but to rule kings.
The origins of this great social change go back to a remote epoch. Even during
that period when the Aryan power was confined to Five River Land, the seeds of
opposition between the temporal and spiritual powers are found in existence ; in the
great battle in which King Sudas conquered the confederacy of the Punjab the oppo-
sition becomes prominent for the first time (cf. p. 369). At an earlier period it was
the natural duty of the tribal chieftain to stand as mediator between his people and
their gods. But it was not every powerful prince or general who possessed the
gifts of the inspired poet and musician, and many kings therefore entrusted this
sacred public duty to their Purohita (p. 367). His reputation was increased by
his power of clothing lofty thoughts in inspiring form, and the position passed
from father to son together with the more stirring hymns which were orally trans-
mitted. Thus priestly families arose of high reputation whose efforts were natu-
rally entirely directed to secure the permanence of their position ; the most certain
means to this end was the creation of a complicated ritual for prayer and sacrifice
which could only be performed by a priesthood with a special training. The scene
of sacrifice was prepared with great attention to minutise, the altars were specially
adorned on every opportunity, and the different sacrifices were offered with scrupu-
lous respect to ceremonial detail ; there were priests who recited only the prayers
from the Rig- Veda (hotar), others who sang the hymns from the Samaveda (udga-
tar) ; a high priest stood at the head of the whole organisation.
Consequently the character of prayer, sacrifice, and indeed the whole body of
theology underwent a fundamental transformation. Originally the victim had
been the pure offering of a thankful heart, while prayer had been the fervent yet
humble expression of those desires which man in his weakness laid before the
almighty powers of heaven. Gradually, however, the idea of sacrifice had been
modified by the theory that human offerings to the gods were not only welcome,
but also necessary and indispensable to those powers. In the sacred writings of a
later date passages repeatedly occur, stating that the gods are growing weak because
the pious priests have been hindered by evil spirits from making the necessary sac-
rifices; Indeed it was only by means of the sacrifices that the gods, who had
formerly been subject to death like men, had acquired immortality. " The gods
lived in the fear of death, the strong Ender, and therefore they underwent severe
penance and made many offerings until they became immortal." Hence was de-
veloped the further idea that by means of sacrifice man could gain a certain power
over the gods themselves and thereby extort gifts and services from them ; and ul-
timately the sacrifice was conceived to be a thing of immense magical power before
which all the other gods must bow. The all-compelling power of the sacrifice was
in the hands of the priests, the Brahmans, and became the firm foundation of their
increasing predominance. An Indian proverb says : " The universe depends upon
374 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
the gods, the gods upon the Maiitra (the formula of sacrifice), the Mantra upon the
Brahmans, and therefore the Brahmans are our gods."
Tradition is silent upon the details of the process by which the dominant
power passed from the hands of the nobility to the priesthood. It was to the
interests of the priests to obliterate historical facts as rapidly and completely as
possible from popular memory, and to inculcate the belief that the high position
of the Brahmans had been theirs from the outset. The history of the period has
been thus designedly obscured, and only at rare intervals is some feeble light
thrown upon it. The epos of the fall of the great race of the Bharata shows us
how the power of the nobility was worn away in bitter struggles ; many priestly
figures such as Drona and his son AsVatthftman take up arms and join in the
destruction of the nobility. A fact throwing special light upon the acerbity of
the contest between the two struggling powers is the appearance in the poem of
the mythical figure of RaTna who was considered an incarnation of Vishnu at a
later period, a Brahman by birth, and armed with the axe (parasurama). The
balance of fortune did not, however, invariably incline in favour of the Brahmans,
as is plain from the many maxims in their ritual and philosophical writings con-
ceived in a very humble tone : " None is greater than the Kshatriya (the warrior),
wherefore the Brahman also makes sacrifices together with the royal offerings to
the Kshatriya." The issue of the struggle began to prove doubtful from the Brah-
man point of view, and therefore the myth claimed the personal interference of
the powerful god Vishnu, who usually became incarnate in times of greatest need,
and therefore descends for this reason to the aid of his special favourites, the
Brahmans. After an infinite series of bloody conflicts, he gains for them a bril-
liant victory ; thrice seven times did Para^urSma purify the earth of the Kshatriya.
(7) TJie Brahman Caste System. — Notwithstanding their military capacity
and their personal strength, the nobles had been defeated, and the priests, armed
with the mysterious magical power of the sacrifice, had gained a spiritual dominion
over the people. This power the priesthood at once proceeded to secure perma-
nently and irrevocably by arrogating to themselves the monopoly of all religious
and philosophical thought, by the strict and detailed regulation of public and
private life in its every particular, by forcing the mind, the feelings, and the will
of every individual into fixed grooves prescribed by the priests. The legal books,
the earliest of which belong to the course of literature of the old Vedic schools
(the Dharmasvitras of Gautama, Apastamba, Baudliayana, and others), explain the
high ideal which the Brahmans proposed to themselves as the true realisation of
national life ; an ideal, however, which was hardly ever attained in its reality or at
the most only within the narrow areas of individual petty States.
The position of the priests is defined with the greatest precision and detail in
the Dharmas'astra of MSnawa, a work afterward ascribed to Manu. In order
to make this work yet more authoritative, its composers assigned to the person-
ality of its author an age almost amounting to immortality (30,000,000 of years)
and divine origin, attempting to identify him with the first ancestor of the Aryans,
the mythical Maim. In reality it was not until shortly before the middle of the
first millennium B.C. that the Ilrahman code had developed so large a quantity <»f
precepts defined with such exactitude; in its present form the \vmk <>f Maim
seems to be the result of later re-editing, and according to Arthur C. Burnell, dates
/«,/,«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 375
from the period between the first century B. c., and the fifth century A. D. Bud-
dhist precepts are plainly apparent in it, and many prohibitions of the earlier and
later periods are brought together in spite of their discrepancy (for instance, the
slaughter of animals and the eating of flesh, side by side with the religious avoid-
ance of animal food) ; Buddhist terms of expression are also found, such as the
mention of female anchorites " an apostate sect," which are evidence in favour of
a later date. The book consists of a collection of proverbial sayings which were
intended to fix the customary law, as established by the Brahmans, for a district
of Northern India of limited area. The work contains 2,685 double lines divided
into twelve books ; of these books, five are concerned with the rights and duties of
the Brahmans, whereas only two books are devoted to the warrior caste, and only
one to all the other castes put together.
Manu expressly proclaims the existence of four castes l only : " The Brahmans,
Kshatriyas, and Vais"yas form the classes in a second state of existence, the Sudra,
is in the first state of existence and forms the fourth class ; a fifth class does not
exist." In this division, the first point of note is the contrast between those in a
first and those in a second state of existence, a contrast which coincides with the
racial contrast between the Aryans and the original inhabitants ; within the Aryan
group a principle of tripartition is again apparent, which, in modern language,
amounts to the separate existence of a learned, a military, and a productive class.
Manu here speaks of only four divisions of society ; elsewhere he recognises
the existence of other caste subdivisions : the castes of the physicians, astrologers,
handicraftsmen, oil manufacturers, leather workers, musical performers, Tshandala,
etc., are subdivisions of the fourth class. Properly speaking, however, the origin
of these castes is, according to Manu, different from that of the main groups ;
these latter are of primaeval origin, created together with the world and (an im-
portant fact) by the purpose of the Creator. A famous hymn of the Eig-Veda,
which is a later interpolation, describes the origin of the castes : " The sacrifice
Purusha, those who were born at the very first (the first men), they offered it upon
sacrificial grass ; to it the gods made offering, the Sadhyas and the Eishis. When
they divided Purusha, into how many pieces was he cleft ? What did his mouth
become, and what his arms, what his legs and his feet ? His mouth became the
Brahman, the Eajanya (Kshatriya) came forth from his arm, the Vais"ya from
his thighs, the Sudra from his feet. The world was born from his soul, the sun
from his eyes, Indra and Agni from his mouth, Wayu from his breath. From his
navel came forth the air, from his head the heaven, from his feet the earth, from
his ear the districts of the world. In this manner did the gods create the world."
Symbolically, the Brahmans were formed from the same member of the body as
the great gods of early India, Indra, and Agni, namely, from the mouth, which
speaks " sanctity and truth ; " the military Kshatriyas were formed from the arms,
whence they received their " power and strength." The thigh bones were the
means of mechanical progress, the lowly toil of life ; from these, therefore, were
the Vaisya formed, who go behind the plough and gain material " riches and pos-
sessions " by their industry. From the feet, however, which ever tread in the dust
of earth, is formed the lowly Sudra, who, from the very beginning, is " destined to
service and obedience." Thus, according to Manu, by means of the sacrificial
1 The word " caste " is of Portuguese origin, pasta meaning race in that language.
376 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
power of the gods and of the sacred primeval Brahmans, the Eishis were formed,
the four great classes of human society.
The Brahmans have another theory to account for the subdivisions within the
£udra class, which are explained as mixed castes proceeding from the alliance of
members of different castes. It is important to notice that position within these
mixed castes is dependent upon the higher or lower caste to which the man or the
woman belonged at the time of procreation. Alliances of men of higher castes,
and even of the Brahmans themselves with low-caste women, are legally permis-
sible ; however, the children of such a marriage do not take the father's caste, but
sink to the lowest castes. Wholly different is the punishment of breaking caste
incurred when a woman has children by a man of lower caste than herself ; not
only is she expelled from her own caste with ignominy and disgrace, but the
higher the caste to which she belonged by birth, the lower is the social depth to
which she and her children sink ; indeed, the lowest of all castes, that of the
Tshandala, is considered by the Brahmans to have been formed by the alliance of
Brahman women with Siidra men. On the other hand, the children begotten bv a
., x
Brahman of a Sudra woman belong to the higher gradations of the Sudra group,
while the father in no way loses his own permanent position.
Such is the teaching of the Brahmans as laid down in the book of Manu upon
the origin of mixed castes. The investigator, however, who leaves the Sanscrit
writings, examines Indian society for himself, and judges the facts before him
without prejudice, cannot resist the impression that this theory upon the origin of
mixed castes is as impossible as that of the creation of the four main castes from
the sacrifice. The only mixed caste in the proper sense of the words is that of the
temple women, and their children ; among these, daughters become temple women,
sons temple musicians, or inferior temple servants, etc. But in all other cases
where there is no very great difference of caste between the parents, the child
takes the lower caste and a new mixed caste never arises. However, in the very
rare cases in which a woman of extremely high caste has a child by a man of very
low caste, abortion is invariably procured, or the mother commits suicide. The
Brahman doctrine upon the origin of the lowest castes is an intentional perversion
of the facts. One of the most skilful investigators of the caste system, W. 11.
Cornish, says, " The whole chapter (of Manu) upon mixed castes is so childishly
conceived and displays so much class prejudice and intolerance, so appalling a
punishment awaiting the Brahman woman who should err, while at the same
time the Brahman is allowed so much freedom of communication with other castes
without injury to his position, that the intentions of the author become forthwith
obvious." These intentions were to maintain purity of blood in the higher castes
and especially in that of the Brahmans, by appointing the heaviest of all punish-
ments upon any woman who should prove unfaithful to her caste. It was not
thus that the lower social groups of which we have spoken originated ; they are
earlier than the laws of Manu. The legislator, however, employed the fear in-
spired by the prospect of sinking to their degraded position as a powerful instru-
ment whereby he might attain his object, the preservation of racial purity among
the Brahmans.
The truth is that castes have arisen from different origins. Differences of race
and racial prejudice form a first line of cleavage. Noteworthy in this connection
is the old Aryan name for caste, warna, that is, colour. The white and the Llack,
™«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 377
the Aryan and the original inhabitant, the " best," the " first " (because the most
successful and powerful) in contrast with the low and the common, the Dasyu, —
these oppositions form the first sharp line of demarcation. At their first meeting
the latter class were naturally not allowed the privilege of conforming to the insti-
tutions of Aryan society ; extermination was the sole method of dealing with them.
At a later period, however, as the conquerors became more prosperous and settled, it
was found advantageous to employ prisoners or subject races as serfs for the purpose
of menial duties. The original inhabitants of the country were thus adopted into
the Aryan society, and in that social order the first deep line of cleavage was made.
Other differences then developed within the Aryan population. It was only natural
that the man who displayed a special bravery in battle should be more highly
honoured and receive a larger share of booty, of territory, and of slaves to cultivate
that territory. Thus, in course of time, a warrior nobility was formed, the
Kshatriya, who rose to power as we have seen in the struggles of the Mahabharata.
We have already explained (p. 373) the manner in which a further social division
was brought about by the formation of a hereditary priesthood (Brahmana). In
proportion, however, as these two classes became exclusive hereditary castes, so
did they rise above the great mass of the people, the farmers, the shepherds, and
the handicraftsmen whose occupations were now considered as professions lacking
in dignity. The Kshatriya proudly called themselves RSja'na, Eajwansi, the royal,
•or the Eajputes (rajaputra), the men of royal race, and thought themselves high
above the wis", the miserable plebs, the Yaisya.
Thus the great castes appointed by Manu had been formed. Further differences
arose within these. Only the Brahmans and Kshatriyas were able for any length
of time to prevent the rise of subdivisions within their own groups. Their narrow
and well-defined profession, and also among the Brahmans, at any rate, their
jealously preserved racial purity protected them from disruption. But in the two
remaining groups, the Vais"ya and the Sudra, who had now entered the social
•organism of the Aryans, a different set of circumstances prevailed ; the development
of larger political bodies resulted in subdivision within these classes. As existence
grew more secure and prosperity increased, the necessities of life increased propor-
tionately. In the simple times of the primaeval Aryan period, every tribe was able
to satisfy such demands for skilled labour as might arise within it ; in the more
complex organisation of society within the Ganges States such simplicity was no
longer possible. Undertakings demanding technical skill called forth by the claims
of a higher civilization necessarily brought about the subdivision of labour and the
creation of technical professions ; manual labour in its several branches became
hereditary among individual families of the lower castes, as other professions had
become hereditary among the Brahmans and Kshatriyas. It is possible that similar
•caste divisions corresponding to the various pr@fessions may have existed among
the original inhabitants of the country before they came into contact with the
Aryans. The natives were by no means, in every case, uncivilized savages ; some of
their tribes were superior in technical skill to the Aryans themselves, and bartered
the products of their higher knowledge with the Aryans through merchants
(Vanidja; in modern Indian, banya). The existence of caste divisions among
them at an earlier period is supported by the enumeration in the code of Manu of
the manufacturing castes in the lower divisions of the Sudra (astrologers, oil
makers, leather workers, musical performers, etc.). It is inconceivable that the
378 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter iv
r.nihmans, when formulating the rules of Indian society, should have troubled
to arrange these numerous subdivisions of the many castes of the Sudra, the more
so as they were accustomed to avoid any possible connection with this unclean
stratum of society ; far more probable is it that those differences of caste within
the 6ftdra which coincide with professions existed before the Aryan period.
The political relations of the Aryans to the non- Aryan natives also contributed
to the development of the Aryan caste system. The deadly hatred of the black,
snub-nosed people which inspires the hymns of the Eig-Veda, was laid to rest ;
during the struggles between the several Aryan princes and States political
necessities often led to acquaintance, alliance, and friendship, even to racial fusion
with the native tribes. In the Mahabharata we find a NishMa prince appointed
guardian of the important river ford at PraySga (p. 371) ; we find Dravidian races*
fighting side by side as the equal allies of pure Aryan tribes, while the names of
certain personalities famous in the great epos, together with peculiarities of character
and custom, are evidence for the close connection between the distinguished Aryan
warrior and the native inhabitant. Krishna, " the Black," is the name given to the
Yadawa prince who appears as the firm ally and friend of the PSnilawas. The
attempt has been made to explain this name by the hypothesis that his tribe had
entered India earlier than the other Aryans, and had therefore been more deeply
burned by the sun ; to this, however, it may be replied that the complexion of a
tribe may be deepened rather by fusion with a black race than by exposure to the
sun. In character also, Krishna appears unlike the Aryans ; he is full of treachery
and deceit, gives deceitful counsel, and justifies ignoble deeds by equivocation
methods wholly foreign to the knightly character of the Aryan warrior. The
Pantshala princess is also entitled Krishna, " the Black ; " the fact that she lived in
true Dravidian style with the five Aryan princes in a polyaudric marriage, shows
the close relations existing between the Aryan and the native peoples. Similar
relations are also apparent in the history of the colonisation of Ceylon ; the Aryan
ancestor Vijayas had married a Dravidian Kaliriga princess, and his grandson,
together with many of his companions, took native women to wife without any
exhibition of racial prejudice. Thus, since the time of the Aryan immigration,.
an important change had taken place in the relations of the two races. The
rapidity with which the racial fusion was carried out is apparent at the present
time in the physical contrast between the peoples of the Northwest and the
Ganges territory ; in Five River Land, in Cashmir, and to some extent in Eajputana
hardly a trace of the black population is to be found, a result of the deadly
animosity with which the war of conquest was prosecuted ; further to the East the
mixed races reappear and the evidence of darker complexion, broader features and
noses, increases proportionately from this point. Such a fusion, and particularly
the incorporation of whole races of the native inhabitants within the Aryan society
must obviously have increased the subdivisions within the castes.
The Brahmans, who took the utmost precaution to preserve their caste purity,
were least affected by the entrance of foreign racial elements ; at any rate in
Northern India their caste, even at the present day, has changed but little from
the Aryan type. However, in Orissa and to a greater extent further southwards,.
even this exclusive sect considered it expedient on different occasions to admit
individuals or even whole tribes of the black race within their caste, if they could
thereby attain any external advantage : thus at the present day in the Deccan many
mdta] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 379
more dark than fair Brahmans are to be inet with (cf. the upper half of the plate
facing p. 418).
In the warrior caste purity of blood was thought of less vital importance ;
among this caste there even existed a legal form of marriage, the "Rakshasa"
marriage, which provided that the bride should be taken by force from a hostile
(often dark-complexioned) tribe. The nobles thus being by no means averse to
marriage with the natives, the common people naturally had the less inducement
to preserve the purity of their Aryan blood. At the same time, however, such
connections often led to disruption within the caste ; the orthodox members refused
to recognise the mixed families as pure Kshatriya or VaiSya, avoided com-
munication with them, and by this process a group which had been originally
uniform was gradually broken into an increasing number of disconnected castes.
The infusion of foreign blood thus acquired seems to have modified by slow degrees
the larger part of the Kshatriya and practically the whole of the Vaisya. Thus we
have an intelligible explanation of the fact that only in comparatively few districts
(for instance, Rajputana) could particular castes retrace their origin with any
clearness to the old Aryan warrior nobility, their proud title of Kshatriya resting
in many cases upon fictitious genealogies. At the present day there is absolutely
no caste of the Vaisya which can prove its connection with the early Vaisya of
the Aryan Ganges States.
The modern caste system of India is broken up into many hundreds or thou-
sands of separate groups. However, in early Brahman times the four main divi-
sions of society appointed by the legal codes had an actual existence. Of these
the £udra led lives that can scarcely be qualified as human. Considered as once-
born, a great gulf was fixed between them and those who had advanced to a higher
state in virtue of a second birth. To them was forbidden the use of the sacred
band with which the youth of the three higher castes were girded as a sign of
manhood upon their coming of age (two threads of wool which passed over the
left shoulder and the right hip ; cf. above, p. 362). It was a mortal crime for any
of the upjper classes to teach a Sudra anything of the sacred proverbs or prayers,
" To the Sudra no man may give counsel, nor is it lawful to give him the remnants
of sacrifice, food, or butter. Similarly, it is unlawful to teach him the doctrine or
the uses of religion. For whosoever teaches him the law, or gives him a share in
religious ceremonies, he, like this Sudra, sinks into the depth of the hell called
Asamwratta." The very breath of the Sudra contaminated the twice-born, even at
a great distance. Consequently, the Sudra had to live far away from the dwellings
of other men, and to build their miserable huts away from the high-road in the
jungle. Should they meet anybody of a higher caste, they must avoid him, keep-
ing at a distance of one hundred paces. The worst rags, the most miserable food,
the lowest and dirtiest labour were considered good enough for this poor, despised
caste.
A great gulf divided the Sudra from the Vaisya. Upon this latter the two
high castes of the priests and the warriors looked disdainfully. The Vaisya was,
however, a twice-born, wore the sacred band, and the knowledge of the Vedas was.
not forbidden to him. It was the common and monotonous nature of his calling
that degraded him in comparison with the higher caste. He was not allowed to
devote himself to the proud service of arms, or to deep spiritual and religious
questions and interests. His lot was to till the soil throughout his life, and upon
380 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
that level he remained. He was the peasant, the shepherd, the lower-class citizen
in the flourishing towns, the manufacturer, the merchant, the money-changer. He
often attained to high prosperity, but could never pass the barrier which the stern
laws of caste had set against his further progress.
Higher than the VaiSya stood the warrior, the Kshatriya, in the social organ-
ism of the Brahmans. The splendour of his profession and of his influence was
but the shadow of that which it had been during the first centuries of the settle-
ment upon the Ganges. Moreover, in the more peaceful times which succeeded
the period of establishment within that district, the profession of the warrior nobles
•decayed considerably. The more, however, his real importance decreased, the more
-anxious were the Brahmans that he should make a brilliant figure before the mass
of the people, in order that he might thus become a valuable ally to themselves for
the attainment of their own purposes. Thus the nobility continued to enjoy a pre-
dominant and honourable position. Their freedom was great compared with that
of other castes, and large possessions in landed property secured to them the enjoy-
ments of life, as well as respect and consideration. If the Kshatriya exhausted all
the pleasures of his high position and was overcome by weariness of the world,
he was allowed to join the company of hermits and to devote the remainder of his
life to inward contemplation.
The Brahmans belonged to the same group of twice-born, and wore the same
sacred band as the other high castes, but had succeeded none the less in securing
for themselves a position that was infinitely the highest in the country. The tre-
mendous principle that they were beings endowed with a special and divine wisdom
and differing in kind from all other men, that they possessed divine power and cor-
responding privileges, is pushed in their legal books to its uttermost extreme.
Their position may be explained by some few quotations from Manu : " What
being can be higher than that through the mouth of which the gods eat their
sacrifice, and the spirits of the dead receive their gifts ? " " Therefore every-
thing that is in the world is the property of the Brahmans; for the Brahman
•can claim it by his superiority and his lofty birth. Indeed, all that men
have they enjoy only through the kindness and good-will of the Brahmans."
"Who without danger could venture to destroy these sacred men, by whom
the all-devouring fire was created, the infinite sea, the moon with its wauings
and waxings ? " " What princes could prosper who should resist them, who
in their anger could build other worlds, and give them rulers, who could call
new gods and new mortals into existence ? " " Who that cares for his life would
outrage those who alone permit the worlds and the gods to exist?" Compare with
these the following phrases upon the Sudra : " One duty has the law laid upon the
Sudra, to serve the higher castes without murmuring." "A Brahman may force
a Sudra, whether he be a bond slave or not, to serve as a slave, for the Sudra was
created by the supreme being for no other purpose than for the service of the
Brahmans." " A Brahman may appropriate without the smallest scruple the whole
property of a Sudra, for he cannot have possessions of his own ; he is a man whose
possessions can be taken from him by his lord." Bemarkable^ also, is the differ-
ence between the penal code of the Brahmans and that of the Sudra ; the greatest
penalty inflicted upon a Brahman in any case is the shaving of the head, whereas
for other castes capital punishment is appointed in similar cases. " In no case may
a king strike a Brahman, even though he catch him red-handed in some crime ; the
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 381
king may only banish him from the land but in possession of his whole property
and unharmed." " Should a Brahman kill a cat, an ichneumon, a frog, a dog, a
lizard, an owl, or a crow, he is to go through the same process of purification as if he
had killed a Sudra." Upon the Sudra, however, a wholly different code is binding.
" Should a once-born man speak insolently of the name or the caste of the twice-
born, a red-hot iron ten fingers in length shall be thrust into his mouth." " If such
a man should be so insolent as to criticise the behaviour of the priests, the king
shall have boiling oil poured into his mouth and ears."
The outward appearance of the Brahman in no way represented the power of
his caste, in which respect he is to be contrasted with the Kshatriya. Modesty,
indeed, poverty characterised his appearance and his mode of life. Lucrative pro-
fessions, which were in his eyes derogatory, were closed to him. On the other
hand, it was the duty of every Brahman to found a family, and his great ambition
was to beget sons who should revere his memory after his death, and provide prayer
and sacrifice for his spirit. Consequently, the material possessions of the Brahmans
became more and more divided. Moreover, the whole Brahman theory of existence
was opposed to the temporal point of view. Not only physical existence, but also*
material possessions were considered by him as so many obstacles in the way to
felicity which his soul would tread when after purification it became reunited with
the universal element. Hence in the eyes of the Brahman the mendicant profes-
sion was in no way derogatory, since the whole world already belonged to him.
Begging, on the contrary, seemed to him the loftiest of all professions, as it implied
the least amount of hindrance in the prosecution of his high tasks. It is true that
voluntary offerings, even when the Brahman power was at its height, by no means
invariably sufficed to maintain the caste, many members of which were obliged for
this reason to adopt one of the lucrative professions. Many gifts were made to
them as payment for relief from spiritual duties, for religious instruction, prayer,,
sacrifice and judicial pronouncements. If the income from these sources proved
insufficient, the Brahman was allowed to plough the fields or to tend the herds.
He might also learn the arts of war and practise them (Drona and Aswatthaman,
p. 374), or carry on commercial business, though money-lending upon interest, the
sale of intoxicating liquors, or of milk and butter, the products of the sacred cow
were forbidden to him. It was as impossible for a Brahman to get his living by
the practice of the lower arts (music, song), or by unclean occupations, as by the
practice of leather-working or any other degrading trade.
The life of a Brahman as a whole included several grades, that of the neophyte,,
the patriarch, the hermit, and the ascetic. Upon his coming of age the youth of
this caste was girded with the sacred band and received into the community of
the twice-born. His education was passed under the supervision of a spiritual
teacher, the Guru, whom he was to reverence more highly than his own father.
" If a Brahman pupil should blame his teacher, even though with justice, he will
be born again as an ass ; should he betray him falsely, as a dog ; should he take
his property without leave, he will be born as a small worm, and should he refuse
him service, as an insect." Under the Guru the young Brahman learned during
the long course of his education the sacred books, all the prayers, offerings, and
ceremonial connected therewith, and all the laws governing Brahman society.
Then came the stage of family life, a burden laid upon him as a member of the
earth to maintain the prosperity of his tribe and caste by begetting sons. This
382 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
task accomplished, the rest of his life was to be devoted to the highest and most
beautiful task, the work of redemption and purification of the soul from earthly
elements. The Brahman, often accompanisd by his wife, leaves his home and
becomes a hermit in the forest. There he lives only upon such fruits or roots as
his surroundings afford, or upon the scanty gifts of pious devotees, being entirely
occupied with the fulfilment of religious precepts and with deep introspective spec-
ulation upon the evils of existence and the means of purification. The highest
task of the Brahman's existence is pure and untroubled thought, far removed from
all worldly interests, upon the deepest questions which can occupy the human
mind. Brahmans of similar interests often united for pious practices; spiritual
orders were formed with rulers to regulate their behaviour, and with the common
object of entirely forgetting the world around them and devoting themselves to
introspection. Others were not content with such intellectual submergence in the
divine, and also sought to suppress and to destroy the earthly element, the flesh,
while they still lived. The most ingenious tortures and penances were devised,
and the universal ordinances of Manu did not leave this subject untouched : " The
penitent is to roll upon the ground, to stand upon tip-toe all day, or to stand up
and sit down alternately without cessation. During the hot season he is to sit
under the burning rays of the sun between four fires ; in time of rain he shall
expose himself naked to the downpour, and wear wet clothes during the cold sea-
son. By increasing severity of his penance, he is gradually to wear away the tem-
poral element. And when he is sick unto death, he is to rise and walk directly
northeast with air and water for his sole nourishment, until his mortal powers
give way and his soul is united with Brahman."
(8) The Brahman Philosophy. — The subjection of the flesh was a task under-
taken with different energy and success by different individuals, but before every
Brahman a high ideal was placed. As the ceremonial aspect and magical effects
of the sacrifice were especially emphasised upon the large mass of the people, so
the best minds of the deepest thinkers could not fail to be proportionately con-
vinced of the valuelessiiess of such ceremonies; the knowledge of the fictitious
basis upon which the power of the Brahmans entirely rested must in many cases
have destroyed the pleasures of their existence. Consequently even in the case of
those who had made the profoundest speculation their peculiar profession, thought
was coloured by a deep sense of the uselessness of existence ; man and the whole
world were but one great process of suffering, and the highest object of life could
only be freedom from this suffering, while the highest object of intellect was to
find the path to freedom. This path was only to be found by the understanding
of suffering as an essential element in life, by the knowledge, that is, of the logical
connection which unifies the cosmos. The path to redemption is the path to
knowledge (fiana). Thus the objects of Brahman philosophy are wholly different
from those of European civilization ; the latter would know the truth for itself
alone, whereas the Brahman speculates with the practical aim of attaining freedom
from the suffering which lies like a curse upon the whole world.
This Brahman philosophy has been reduced to writing in the Upauishads, the
"mystical teaching of that which lies concealed beneath the surface." These also
are considered as sacred writings, but are the exclusive possession of the higlu^t
castes, whereas the Vedas were open to the Yaisya. Their teaching is spiritual
Inilii
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 383
pantheism ; the cosmos is one being, a world soul, Atman or Brahman. The teach-
ing of the Upanishads is explained in detail in the philosophic system of the
•" Vedanta."
The world soul in its original form, and in its ultimate condition, the " self," is
impersonal (the Brahman, neuter) without consciousness, in absolute tranquillity,
infinite, without beginning or end and existing by and for itself. As soon, how-
ever, as the desire for activity arises within it, it becomes the personal creator
(Brahma) ; this it is, which creates the world perceptible to the senses. Every-
thing in the world, the heaven and the foundations of the earth, fire and water, air
and earth, suns, plants and all living beings, animals, men and gods are the ema-
nation of that all-pervading spirit, the Brahman, conceived as personally operative.
When this latter desires to become creative, its objective appearance in the world
implies the production of spirit (apperception, thought, and will) and of bodily
form, which varies in the case of different living beings, consisting of a material
body which disappears upon death, and a more immaterial form in which the soul
remains upon the departure of the body ; this latter survives until the soul which
it clothes is again absorbed into the impersonal and unconscious Brahman. Dur-
ing the period of earthly existence the universal being by objectifying itself aban-
dons that state of absolute passivity, which is its highest form ; it sinks, that is,
from the highest stage of perfection. Hence is derived the suffering inseparable
from earthly existence, and return to the ideal condition of passivity enjoyed by
the world soul is the great longing of every creature. The path of redemption is
by no means easy ; by the iron laws of causation, the operation of the world soul
becomes a curse permanently imposed upon every physical being. Every act, bad
or good, leads to some new act, to further separation from the highest existence,
and hence to further unhappiness. Every death is followed by a new birth, the
soul entering a higher or a lower plane of existence according to the merits of its
previous life, becoming a god, a Brahman or a Sudra, a four-footed animal, an in-
sect or a worm.1 The chain of transmigrations which the soul may thus undergo
is of endless duration, including millions of new births. None the less, a definite
goal is set before it and the reunion or absorption of the personal soul into the
absolute passivity and unconsciousness of the primal Brahman is a definite possi-
bility ; the way leading to this end is the way of knowledge, the way of under-
standing, which can only be attained by absolute self-absorption.
This pantheistic teaching of the Brahmans emphasises the width of the dis-
tinction between the purely spiritual nature of the original Brahman and that of
the existing world. Several philosophical systems and schools (six of which have
found general recognition), have attempted to solve the great problem by different
methods. Of these, two are of especial importance for the further development
of Indian thought, the Samkhya philosophy and the already mentioned Veda"nta
philosophy (the end or perfection of the Vedas). The former considers the exter-
nal world as having an objective reality under certain aspects, a reality derived
from the creative power of the world soul ; whereas to the Vedanta philosophy
material existence is purely illusory and has no value as such. According to this
latter, as soon as the Brahman acquires consciousness and personality, it also assumes
1 The more practical doctrine for popular consumption also inserted promises of purifactory fires and the
punishments of hell, which were painted by Indian imagination in the liveliest possible colours.
384 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
an imaginary physical form. In its most refined form it appears as the chief divine
personality, ls"wara. But all such forms are necessarily subject to the conditions
of activity (rajas), of goodness (sattwa), and of imperturbability or darkness
(tamas), so that this highest god appears as a trinity. He is the personally active
creator, Brahma" ; the all-helping, ever operative Vishnu, or the Kudra Siva, the
agent of dissolution and destruction. At the same time, however, these and all
the other gods, together with mankind and the whole of the material world, are
merely a dream, an idea of the world soul which is itself the sole existing reality.
It was not easy to appreciate all the difficulties which beset every Indian philo-
sophical system, much less to pass judgment upon the results. The text of the
sacred Vedas, the basis of all knowledge, was with the utmost difficulty harmonised
with the philosophy. The interpreter was obliged to take refuge in comments and
explanations, which are refinements of hair-splitting and miracles of ingenuity.
Commentators were invariably anxious to surpass one another in learning and
erudition, in readiness and brilliancy of exposition. The methodic and the formal
finally strangled the material content of the system, and Indian philosophy was
thus degraded into a scholasticism with every characteristic of that current in
the thought of mediaeval Europe.
(e) Brahman Theology. — The teaching of Brahman philosophy was fully
calculated to satisfy the introspective spirit of the Brahman weary of life and tor-
mented by doubt. To him, bound fast in the chains of asceticism, this teaching
appeared as truth of the highest and most indisputable order. To the great mass
of the people, however, such teaching was unintelligible, and would in any case
have proved unsatisfactory. The worker for his daily bread demands other spiritual
food than the philosophic thinker. A popular divinity must be almighty and at the
same time intelligible to mankind: If the Brahmans did not wish to lose their
influence upon the people, a danger threatened by the appearance of Buddhism
with its powerful spiritual influence, they were forced to offer to the people gods
more definitely comprehensible to the ordinary mind.
The gods of the old Vedas of the military period had lost their splendour and
power upon the downfall of the nobility. They had developed under other circum-
stances, and were unable to conform to the new conditions of life. But in legend
and poetry other ideal figures had arisen, the heroes of the flourishing period of the
Aryan domination in the west of the Ganges valley. Mythology provided them
with a genealogy, bringing them into connection with those forms of nature which
had ever been objects of especial reverence (the Sun and Moon dynasties). How-
ever, the Indian heroic period was historically too near in date to the development
of Brahmanism for its figures to attain the position of supreme gods. Other divini-
ties came forward from other directions. The diminution and the importance of
the old Vedic gods was largely due to the conjunction and partial fusion of the
two races which had originally opposed one another as deadly foes. At that period
the Aryan gods had been primarily gods of battle and slaughter. Circumstances
now had become more peaceful and tranquil. As, however, under Brahman influ-
ence the people lost the proud, consciousness of their strength, as they also be-
came penetrated with the sense of the miseries of existence, so did they become
more inclined to receive the mysterious and repellent forms of the primeval
Indian demonology, which had formed the shadowy spirit world of the original
inhabitants.
/*«.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 385
This change in the belief of the great mass of the people was by no means
unwelcome to the Brahmans. In the worship of these gods, in their magic formulae
and incantations, in their objective representations, they found a great deal which
corresponded to their own worship ; and they had, therefore, the less scruple in
forming an alliance with the demon world of the Dravidians. Hence it is that in
the later sacred books of the Brahmans, even in the Atharva Veda, the latest
in date of the Vedas, numbers of alien and evil spirits leer upon us, of which the
earlier books, the Rig Veda especially, knew nothing. For the Brahmans it was
perfectly easy to include these spirits within their own Pantheon, for their theory
of immanence and emanation enabled them to incorporate within their own system
elements the most contrary to the divine nature. As their highest being, the Uni-
versal Soul, manifested himself in an infinite variety of forms, why should not these
manifestations include evil demons and ghosts ? Their own speculations upon the
three manifestations assumed by the supreme being when personified, corresponded
in two cases, at any rate, to the two characteristics of the gods of one and of the
other race. In the kindly benevolent Vishnu were personified the early Vedic gods,
well disposed toward mankind ; whereas the disruptive and destroying Rudra Siva
(see the upper plate, "Early Indian Sculpture," page 390) was the personification
of all those hostile powers which were feared in the demoniacal deities of the
Dravidians. The remaining manifestation of the Brahman supreme being, the
personified and creative Brahma, in no way corresponded with any part of the relig-
ious feelings and desires of the people, but has always remained a conception
peculiar to the Brahmans. In many thousands of temples worship was paid to
the other two personifications of the supreme being, whereas throughout India
hardly two temples can be found in which a Brahman desirous of objectifying
his conceptions, worships the creative power of the world soul under the image of
a god.
(£) The Extension of Brahmanism to South India. — As the Aryan States on
the Ganges flourished and extended, as life became more highly organised, so did
the Brahmans become ever more inclined to the solitary life. In countries as yet
untouched by Brahman teaching, in the jungle deserts and beyond the boundaries of
foreign native States, whole colonies of hermits arose, living either in isolation or
under some organised constitution. Often, indeed, they had to struggle with the at-
tacks of hostile races. We hear a great deal of the evil Rftkshasa, who harassed or
disturbed the pious hermits. But they also met with more civilized and kindlier treat-
ment, and men were found who would gladly make small offerings to the more highly
educated foreigners, receiving instruction and stimulus in exchange. These men
thus became the pioneers of Brahmanism, and their monasticism and influence
steadily extended southward. The Mahabharata describes how Arjuna, during his
pilgrimage from hermitage to hermitage, at length reached the maidens' baths of
Komarya at Cape Comorin. Similarly Ra"ma meets hermits everywhere. The
name, however, that constantly recurs in all these reports, the man who is ever
ready to help all Aryan-Brahman kinsmen with counsel and assistance, the man
who possesses the greatest influence in the whole of the south is Agastya. In the
myths he appears as one of the greatest sages (Rishi) of the primeval period, the
son of Mitra and Varuna, the strong helper in the necessity of the old Aryan gods
when they were threatened with conquest by the evil demons, the Asuras. In the
VOL. 11 — 25
386 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chafer ir
south, he is the incarnation of the victorious advance of Brahman culture. The
Vindhya Mountains hitherto uncrossed bend before him. He is the sworn enemy
of the evil demons, the Kakshasa (the gods of the original inhabitants) and the
bringer of civilization to the Dravidian kingdoms, and consequently the Tamir
Muni, the sage of the Tamils.
The history of the south before the Brahman period is hidden for us in dark-
ness, only penetrated here and there by the feeblest rays of light. Native legends
consider the starting point of the general development of civilization and politics
to be Korkay (the Greek Colchi) at the mouth of the sacred river Tambraparn! in
the Gulf of Manaar. This district, sheltered upon the east by the bridge of Adam
from the inhospitable Sea of Bengal with its dangerous cyclones, forms a connec-
tion between the two rich lands of India and Ceylon on the north and south.
Korkay was an old town even when the Greeks first visited it and brought news
of its existence to the west. It owes its origin and its prosperity to the product of
that gulf, the pearls, which were highly prized in antiquity, in which this Bay of
Colchi has proved richer than any other part of the earth at any period of history.
The age of that old trading station is probably identical with the date of the use
of pearls for ornamentation among the peoples of antiquity. The ancient ruins of
Korkay have been discovered at a distance of several miles from the present coast
line, buried in the alluvial soil which the Tambraparni brings down, advancing its
delta ever further into the sea (not far from the modern harbour of Tutikoriu).
The legend relates that Korkay was founded by three brothers, who lived in unity
for a considerable period, afterward separating and founding three kingdoms (the
Mandalas), the Pandya kingdom (in Greek Pandion) in the extreme south, the
Chola kingdom in the northeast, and the Chera kingdom in the north and north-
west (see below). Of these, the most important was the Pandya kingdom, which
for a long period held the harbour of Korkay as its capital. The totem sign or
insignia of its kings was the Fish (carp), a fact confirming the legend, which states
that the centre from which further civilization was developed lay upon the sea. At
a later period the capital was placed more in the centre of the country at MathurS.
When the first Aryan-Brahman hermits advanced into that distant territory, they
found flourishing and well-organised States in existence. The later introductions
of northern civilization were collectively attributed to the name of Agastya. He
arrived at the court of King Kulasekhara, was well received, and wrote books in
the language of the country, treating of every branch of science and culture.
Utterly different is the history of the introduction of Aryan civilization to the
south. In the north, it had led to a racial struggle. The rude strength of races
more powerful intellectually and physically had been pitted against backward
tribes, the consequence being that the latter had disappeared or had been reduced
to the lowest stage in the social organism ; whereas in the south the struggle was
fought with intellectual weapons, the higher knowledge and power of pre-eminent
individuals. Brahmanism creeps in quietly and insinuatingly, makes concessions^
leaves the people in possession of their language, increasing their vocabulary with
elements of the sacred Brahman language (Sanscrit) only where it is incapable of
expressing the terms of abstract thought and religious teaching. But even then
this language is so highly respected that kings and towns consider it an honour to
bear a Sanscrit together with their old Dravidiau name, which former are known
to us only from the later accounts of the Greeks. Moreover, the native name
/««•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 387
Pandya (the sap of a palm-tree, one of the staple products of the country) so closely
resembled the Pandava of Aryan legend (p. 370) that the two were considered
identical, and the Pandya dynasty of the southern kingdom was identified with
the Aryan gods who had sprung from the PSndu dynasty in the north. The
Brahmans even left the people their system of writing. The original native
Vattezhat alphabet (Vatteluttu), a wholly original creation, maintained its ground
in the three kingdoms of Southern India until the end of the first millennium A. D.,
when it was replaced by a more modern system which may be traced back to the
Southern Asoka inscriptions.
The date of the subjection of Southern India to Brahman influence is as uncer-
tain as is the whole chronology of India before the Greek age. The Kshatriya
play no part in this intellectual subjection of the south. The immigrants appear
also to be in full possession of the pure Brahman civilization, facts which show
that the struggles for supremacy between these two orders must have already come
to an end. The Greeks under Alexander the Great and the Eomans in the
Augustan period found the social life of the people so penetrated with Brahman-
ism that several centuries must then have elapsed from the date of its introduction.
Hence we, perhaps, conclude that the conversion of the south to Brahmanism took
place in the first half of the first millennium B. c.
(77) The Early Kingdoms in the South of India. — The earliest historical men-
tion of the Pandya kingdom of Southern India occurs in the Buddhist chronicles
of Ceylon. The forerunners of the Aryans under Vijaya had already encountered
a strong kingdom in that district, to which the north of Ceylon was probably tribu-
tary, and it appears that the new Aryan arrivals who took wives from that country
were obliged to send the regular tribute of pearls and conchs to the Pandya princes.
The reports of Megasthenes at the end of the fourth or beginning of the third
century B. c. mention the Pandya kingdom as lying at the extreme south of
the Indian peninsula, adding a word upon its productiveness in pearls. The king-
dom is also mentioned in the inscriptions of Asoka in connection with the two
neighbouring Tamil States (Pada = Pandya, Chuda = Chola, and Kera = Chera).
Eoman coins are occasionally found in this most southern portion of India, and
confirm Strabo's references to the commercial relations existing between the Eoman
and the Pandya kingdoms and of the embassy sent by the latter to the emperor
Augustus. The boundaries of this kingdom (see the map, p. 430) coincide upon
the south and southeast with the north coast of the Gulf of Manaar and
the Palk Straits. From the north end of these the frontier line advances in a
westerly direction to the Palni hills. Upon the west the power of the Pandya
king often extended to the Arabian Sea, and even at the present day the language
of the east, Tamil, is spoken in the southernmost districts of the Malabar coast.
During the whole of its existence the Pandya kingdom was distinguished by a
brave and warlike spirit. It was continually at variance with its southern neigh-
bours (the Singhalese) and also with the Chola in the north. Generally speaking,
its civilization was far in advance of that possessed by any other State of Southern
India,
The northeastern neighbour of this most southerly State was the State of the
Chola (the name of the Koromandel coast is a corruption of Chola mandalam or
Chola kingdom), a tribe of almost equal antiquity to the Pandya. Ptolemy speaks
388 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
of the nomadic Sorai of this district, of the wandering Chola. The chief tribe was
that of the Kurumba, a nomadic race of shepherds, and their restless life perhaps
explains those warlike tendencies which brought them into continual discord with
neighbouring tribes. They were also constantly involved in hostile undertakings
against the more distant Ceylon. Their capital has often changed its position ;
Comba = Conum, Trichinopoly, Tan j ore, now occupy the sites of their earlier capi-
tals. The northern frontier originally lay more to the southward, but was extended
in course of time to include part of the district of the Telugu languages. From
this point as far northward as the Kistna (Krishna) succeeded a number of inde-
pendent tribes, the most important of which were the Pallava. Beyond the Kistiia
as far as Orissa extended the primeval Dravidian Kalinga kingdom.
In the south of the peninsula the kingdom of the Chera, the third of the
Dravidian kingdoms, occupied the coast of Malabar from about Calicut to Cape
Comorin, though its frontiers at different periods extended eastward beyond the
ghats (Mysore, Coimbatore, Salem), while during other periods portions even of
the district on the Malabar coast were occupied by the Pandya kings. On the
whole, this branch of the Dravidian States was more peacefully inclined than its
eastern neighbours. The fertile character of the Malabar coast favoured a more
restful course of development, and rather inclined the inhabitants to tranquillity.
The vernacular diverged from the Tamil as lately as one thousand years ago, and
must now be considered a special language, though the old Tamil alphabet, the
Vattezhat (p. 387), still remains in use.
(6) The Advance of Bralimanism to the Malabar Coast, — Upon the north of
the Chera Kingdom Brahman civilization at an early period exercised a deeper
influence upon the inhabitants of the Malabar coast than in any other part of
Southern India. While the age of chivalry was at its height, the Aryans had
advanced as far as Gujerat on the Gulf of Cambay (p. 371); from this point Aryan
influence extended eastward. Between the native independent States of the Bhilla
(Bhil) colonists were continually advancing, and Aryan manners were extended
over the west of Central India (Malwa, reaching the land of the Mahrattas in
course of time). The triumphant colonisation of the west coast, known by the San-
scrit name of Kerala (the land of the Chera), belongs to the later period of Brahman
predominance. In the northern half of this district, especially in the modern
Kanara and Malabar, a federation of sixty-four cantons seems to have existed
before the Brahmans entered the country. The military protection of the country
was intrusted to a sixth part of the members of this federation (ten and a half
cantons), while the government was carried on by a council of five ministers, who
were re-elected every four years. When the Brahmans pressed into this fruitful
territory in greater numbers, they maintained the existing constitutional forms
while securing their own recognition as the royal masters of the country. A
legend of Brahman origin ascribes their arrival to the help of the Brahman god,
Vishnu, incarnate as Rama, with the battle axe (Parasu Rama, p. 373). The
legend represents him as a son of the Brahman sage, Jamadagni. During the
absence of this latter, a sacrificial calf was stolen from his cell by the Kshatriya
Prince KSrtavirya, and the son avenged his father by killing the Kshatriya. In the
feud which resulted, Jamadagni fell a victim, and R^ma swore vengeance upon
the whole order of the Kshatriya, and exterminated them (" He purified the earth
Indi
<•«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 389
twenty-one several times of the Kshatriya," op. cit.). The gods rewarded him for
his piety with a promise that the country should be his as far as he could hurl his
battle axe. The weapon flew from Gokama to Cape Comorin. Thus the whole of
the Malabar coast was gained and settled by the Brahmans, to whom Paralu Kama
presented the district. At the present day the Malabar chronology begins with
that throwing of the axe and the creation of the country, which is dated 1176 B. c.
The legend was invented as a foundation for the claims which the Brahmans
O
raised upon entering the country. Their theory was they were the actual pos-
sessors of the land which they had restored to its old masters only upon lease, and
that therefore the warriors must reverence them and swear to them oaths of alle-
giance. Even at the present day the superior Brahman castes on the whole of the
Malabar coast enjoy a far higher position than those upon the east coasts of the
peninsula. The Namburi Brahmans on the west coast jealously maintain the purity
of their Aryan blood, and look scornfully upon the other dark-complexioned
Brahmans of Southern India, though these also are girdled with the sacred band.
(d) Buddhism in India. — An examination of the state of India about the
middle of the first millennium B. c. shows the prevailing conditions to have been
as follows : The Aryans had risen to a high prosperity, their social life had rapidly
developed, States large and small had been formed, populous towns were adorned
by the splendour of their royal courts and by the wealth of the inhabitants ; agri-
culture, industry, and trade were flourishing. National feeling among the ruling race
had also undergone a change, and in some respects a change for the worse ; the bright
spirit of youth, the sense of power, the pride of freedom are things of the past.
Society was divided or cleft asunder by the institution of caste. Any feeling of
equality has given way to the spirit of caste, which induces the lofty to look down
with contempt upon the humble, which precludes all possibility of common action
for the public good, which therefore makes national feeling impossible. For every
caste its every action is accurately prescribed, while the highest activities, those of
thought, are monopolised by the Brahmans. The latter claimed to have sprung
from the head of the first man (p. 375), and in actual practice were they the head
of society. But speculation had undergone a fundamental change since the period
of Aryan immigration. The priests continued to offer formal prayers to the old
gods in which no one any more believed. A deep sense of the futility of existence
penetrated every thinking mind, while opinions were divided as to the means which
should be adopted to gain release from existence. Schools and orders multiplied
continually. It was as if one of the fierce cyclones of Bengal had burst upon the
forest. The giant forms of the ancient gods lay dead upon the ground, and from
this devastation new cults were rising, each struggling with the other for air, light,
and space. Of these, one alone was fated to become a mighty tree, collecting
almost the whole of Central and Eastern Asia beneath its branches — Buddhism.
The centres of Indo-Aryan development slowly changed in the course of ages
from west to east. Advancing over the northwest passes in the third millennium
B. c., the Aryans occupied Five Eiver District during the second millennium ; about
the middle of this epoch may have occurred those straggles on the frontier between
the Punjab and the Ganges district, when King Sudas defeated the allied tribes
of the west. The end of this epoch may be considered to include the flourishing
period of the principalities on the Jumna and the upper Ganges, whose struggles
390 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
have provided a foundation of historical legend for the great heroic poem of the
Bharata. Another five hundred years and the centre of gravity has again moved
eastward to the countries which end where the Ganges delta begins and where the
town of Benares rises. Here about this period were formed a number of principali-
ties and free States, among them the powerful kingdom of Magadha with the old
capital of Rajagriha (in that district of the modern Behar, which lies to the south
of the Ganges). We should know but little of the different petty States on the
northern side of the Ganges opposite Magadha were it not for the fact that here
was the home of that religious teacher, Buddha, whose doctrine is to-day accepted
by hundreds of millions of men. Upon the spurs of the Himalaya, on the stream
of the Rohini, the modern Kohani, had settled the tribe of the Sakya within which
the Kshatriya nobility still played an important part in the continual friction that
occurred with the neighbouring petty States. To this class belonged the chieftain
of the tribe Suddohana of the Gautama family, the father of Buddha, who resided
in the capital of the country, Kapilavatthu.1
(a) The Life of Buddha. — According to the Buddhist legend, Suddhodana
had married two daughters of the neighbouring Kolya prince (on the other bank of
the Rohim), who was also a Kshatriya. For a long time he remained childless,
but in his forty-fifth year the elder of his wives, Maya, became with child. As,
according to the custom of the period and of her order, she was journeying home-
ward to her father's house, there to await her confinement, she was surprised on
the way in the grove of Lumbini by the birth of a son, who was named Siddhartha.
This is the personal name of Buddha, who is often known by his family name
of Gautama (Gotama). All his other titles are additional names, the number of
which is proportionate to the reverence and admiration of his devotees. In every
case, like the titles of Redeemer, Christ, etc., applied to Jesus, they are merely
descriptions of his personal characteristics. For instance, Sakya Muni means the
sage of the Sakya family ; !§akya Simha means the Sakya lion ; Bhagavat means
the reverend ; Sattha, the teacher ; Jina, the conqueror, etc. Buddha also is but
one of these titles meaning "The Enlightened" (see the lower half of plate, "Early
Indian Sculpture ").
The birth of Siddhartha is placed with some probability between the years 560
and 557, and his death between 480 and 477 B.C. On the seventh day after his
birth his mother died, the child being now carefully tended and brought up by
his aunt, Prajapati (Pali : Pajapati). According to the custom of the time, the
young SiddhSrtha was married in his nineteenth year to his cousin, Wasodhara, a
daughter of the Kolya prince, and their union was blessed by the birth of a son,
Rahula, after ten years. Any other man would probably have been contented and
happy in the position of SiddMrtha. He had everything and was everything which
a noble Kshatriya could desire to have or to be. But in his twenty-ninth year a sense
of dissatisfaction came upon him. Amid all his external prosperity, his lofty and
serious mind could not refrain from the contemplation of the futility of existence.
His thoughts upon the misery of the world and the means of liberation therefrom
take in the legend a personal and objective figure. A god appears to him first as an
old man in his second childhood, then as a stern tyrant, again as a corrupting corpse,
1 This is the Pali form of the name ; Sanscrit, Vapilavastu.
The god Siva, dancing upon corpses and decorated with a garland of death's heads ; Brahman
sculpture in relief at Ellora. (From a photograph.)
(a) Buddha in clay (/,) Stone sculpture. (Both after Albert Grunwedel.
ANCIENT INDIAN SCULPTURE
Jnili
/«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 391
and finally as a reverend hermit. It was the birth of his son which determined
him to put into execution a long preconceived resolve. He saw in the child a new
bond which would fetter him to the world. The story of Siddhartha's flight is the
most moving picture in the whole legend of his life. Only once was he willing to
look upon that which is the dearest thing in this world, only ouce would he press
his new-born son to his heart. Quietly he glided into the bedroom where his wife
and child were resting ; but the mother's hand lay upon her child's head and he
could not take the child in his arms without waking her.
Thus he left wife and child without a word and went out into the nighf with
no companion but his charioteer, whom he presented with all his ornaments and
ordered to inform his family of his resolve. He then cut his hair short, exchanged
his rich garments for the rags of a passing beggar, and made his way alone to the
capital of the Magadha kingdom, Kajagriha, near which pious hermits had settled
in the caves of the rock. To these he joined himself, hoping to learn from them
the solution of the great riddle of existence. But Brahman metaphysics brought
no consolation to his soul. Neither from Alara Kalana nor from Uddaka Eama-
putta could he obtain the object of his search, — the path to freedom from the
pain of existence. He left both teachers and turned to the forests of Uruvela
(near the modern Buddha-gaya), in which five Brahman hermits were already
living a life of asceticism. For six years he surpassed them all in the cruelty of
his penances until his former powerful and beautiful frame had been worn to a
shadow. The reputation of his extraordinary self-torture spread far and wide, but
he himself became the more unhappy in proportion as others esteemed him far
advanced upon the road to salvation.
He fell in a swoon from weakness, but on his restoration to consciousness
he had found strength to leave the path of error. When he again began to
take food like other men he lost the belief and respect of his five companions.
They left him and turned to the holy town of Benares to accomplish their
purification in more sacred surroundings. The man they left behind had now
to undergo a severe mental struggle. Buddhist legend represents the conflict
between his intellect and his sympathies as a battle between bright and dark
spirits who struggled in conflict so that the world trembled and was almost moved
from its foundation. Meanwhile Siddhartha was wrestling for enlightenment by
the banks of the Nairanjara. The prospect cleared and the mysteries of suffering
and of the road to salvation were laid open before him. He had now become
" The Buddha," the Enlightened, who had attained knowledge of redemption not
only for himself but for the whole world. For seven days Buddha remained in
extreme exaltation of mind, in holy glorification under the sacred fig tree (ficus
religiosa; in Singhalese, Bo tree, the tree of knowledge ; in Sanscrit, Bodhi). A pair
of benevolent men brought him rice cakes and honey, and he in return gave them
his greatest gift, his teaching. These two men, Tapussa and Bhallika', were his
first converts, who took " refuge with Buddha and knowledge." Doubt then came
upon the enlightened sage as to whether the coarse mind of the masses was capable
of realising the great truths he taught. But the world god Brahman urged him
to preach his doctrine and Buddha gave way. He went to that very forest where
the five companions of his former penance were staying and explained the main
features of his doctrine to them in the " Sermon of Benares." Neither a life of
pleasure nor the extirpation of all pleasure could lead to the goal, the true way
392 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
lying midway between these extremes. In broad outline he shows them the truth
upon the question of suffering and the eightfold road to liberation.
From this point onward the life of Buddha is entirely occupied with the
teaching and conversion of the people. The persuasion of five nobles of Benares
brought about a rapid increase in his scanty congregation, to which fifty adherents
were shortly added. The reputation of the new doctrine spread far and wide ; the
people thronged from every direction and from distant settlements to hear his
teaching. Buddha sent out his sixty disciples as apostles : " Go forth, ye mendi-
cants, upon your way, for the salvation of the people, for the good of the people,
for the salvation, the advantage, and the prosperity both of gods and men." The
Enlightened One did not remain alone after despatching his apostles. Shortly
afterward thirty rich youths accepted his doctrine, who were followed by one thou-
sand fire worshippers. The most important convert, however, was Bimbisara, king
of the great Magadha kingdom. In him Buddhism gained a powerful patron, and
the conversions of lay brothers immediately due to this success were numbered by
tens of thousands. Even more important converts were the two most famous
pupils of the master, Sariputta and Mogallana.
The conversion of King Bimbisara marks the first step of that policy which
was characteristic of this religion in its later developments, namely, the policy
of entering into relations with the ruling powers and invoking their protection.
Henceforward Buddhism rises and falls in the several States as their ruling
dynasties prosper or decay. The same phenomenon appears in Ceylon, where
the Buddhist communities attained to extraordinary prosperity under powerful
and fortunate kings, while the political disasters resulting from the war with the
Dravidians repeatedly brought the doctrine to the point of annihilation. Toward
its patrons Buddhism invariably displayed a considerable amount of adaptability.
Its first chief patron, Bimbisa"ra, secured the introduction into the monastic com-
munities of the monthly penances formerly practised by many Brahman monks
(the strict observance of the four quarters of the moon; the Poya days of the
modern Singhalese), and also of the Uposadha days. When Buddha returned,
during his later wanderings, to his native town, where his son Kahula entered the
community, at the request of the old prince he added to the rules of the commu-
nity the regulation that no son should become a monk without his father's consent.
The fundamental objections of Buddha to the institution of orders of nuns were
only overcome by the influence of his foster mother, Prajapati, who was of royal
race and desired to found such an order. On the other hand, the new doctrine
thus powerfully supported gained not only popular approval, but also material help.
Poverty was as a rule obligatory only upon individual monks, and from the outset
the order was always glad to receive rich presents. The first of such foundations
was that of the Bamboo Grove, near the capital of Magadha ; and even during the
lifetime of the master, princes and rich men rivalled one another in making similar
offerings. A long list of large gardens and parks were even then assigned to the
order, one of the most famous of these being the garden of Jetawana at Sdwatthi.
In Ceylon, where the history of Buddhism is more easily followed, the larger and
more valuable part of all the arable land eventually fell into the hands of the
order.
Among the pupils who gathered round the person of Buddha, one of the most
human figures is his cousin Ananda, who, though not distinguished for intellectual
/**•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 393
power, engages our sympathy by his loving devotion to his master. But even in
that narrow circle which gathered round the enlightened one, the element of evil
was to be found, even as in the apostolic band of Jesus. Devadatta, a personality
swollen with pride and dominated by immeasurable ambition, is, during the time
of Buddha, a type of that sectarian spirit which resulted in the repeated schisms
of later years ; even during the master's life time many believers were led astray
by him. And as at a later period one sect invariably abuses and maligns another,
so here legend even reproaches the ambitious disciple with attempts upon his
master's life.
For forty-five years after his " enlightenment " Buddha traversed the country
preaching his doctrine and making thousands of converts ; at length a severe ill-
ness reminded him that the end of his life was approaching. In deep anxiety his
congregation asked who was to follow him as their leader. But the master refers
them to their own knowledge : " Be your own illumination, be yourselves your
refuge, have no other refuge ; for the doctrine shall be your light, the doctrine
shall be your refuge, and have no other refuge." By sheer will-power the sick
man was cured for the time ; but he himself prophesied his death at the end of
three mouths. The last days of Buddha are related by the legend with details so
realistic that it is probable they contain some substratum of historical truth. He
is said to have gone to Pawa with his favourite pupil Ananda, where, with other
monks, he received hospitality from Kunda the smith. Tainted pork was set upon
the table at their meal, and after partaking of this he fell ill. However, he con-
tinued his journey. But in the neighbourhood of Kusinara his strength failed him,
and lying down under two beautiful amyris trees he awaited death. He thanks
his faithful Ananda for all his love and devotion, asks the monks gathered round
him three times whether any feels doubt, and, when all have asserted their faith,
he speaks his last words, " Of a truth, 0 monks, I say unto you, all that is must
decay ; strive for perfection and faint not." Then his life passed into nirvana.
" As the mortal remains of the King of Kings are treated, so shall one treat
the remains of him who has been perfected," so runs the saying of Ananda when
the Mailers of Kusinara questioned him upon the form of burial. The prepara-
tions lasted for six days, after which the funeral pyre was lighted with the utmost
pomp. The ashes of the great departed were collected. Constant demands for
relics came in, with proposals to guard them in fitting memorials (stupas) ; and it
was at last arranged that the remains should be divided into eight parts and
presented to the eight most important States in which Buddha had lived and
worked.
(/3) The "Three Councils" -- Later tradition relates that immediately after
the funeral the most important monks met together in Eajagaha, under the presi-
dency of Kasyapa (Pali, Kassapa), who defined as accurately as possible the form-
ulae of the doctrine (the first council of ESjagaha). It is said that the sayings of
Buddha relating to the discipline of the order (Winaya) were related by Upali,
while the general teaching (sutra ; Pali, sutta) upon the daily life of all, including
the lay adherents, was recited by Ananda ; this teaching was then committed to
memory by five hundred monks, and by them handed down to tradition. Exactly
two hundred years after the death of the master it became necessary to call a
second council, that of Vesali (Vaisali). As a number of monks had supported
394 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
views which diverged in detail from the original doctrine, a committee met at
Vesali and determined the direction of Buddhist doctrine for the future.
The first council of historical authenticity is the third, that of Patna (about
250 B. c.). Dipawams'a, the earliest chronicle of Ceylon, reports upon this as
follows : " With the object of destroying infidelity many of the pupils of Buddha,
sixty thousand sous of Jina, met together in council. Over this assembly pre-
sided Tissa Mogalliputta (also Moggaliputta, son of Mogalli). For the purpose
of purifying the faith and formulating the doctrine for the future the president,
Tissa, appointed one thousand Arahats, choosing the best members of the assembly,
and held a synod. The third council was brought to an end after a space of nine
months in the monastery of ASokaraTna, built by King Dhammas'oka." In order
that the doctrines of the master might be the better transmitted to the disciples,
the council formulated his teaching in the canonical books of the tripitaka (" three
baskets "). This council was also responsible for the despatch of numerous mis-
sionaries who introduced Buddhism into Ceylon amongst other places ; from this
period begin the monastic annals of the Singhalese which, at a later period, were
worked into the chronicles. In these there is mention made of the names of some
of the missionaries who were then despatched, and the credibility of the chronicles
has been considerably strengthened by the discovery of the tomb of one of those
missionaries ( Madochhima) in North India.
Granted that the council of Patna is historically authentic, the same can by no
means be said of the two preceding councils. It is indeed true that the council
of Vesali was held two hundred years after the death of Buddha, — that is to say,
less than fifty years before the conversion of Ceylon, and we may therefore sup-
pose that later tradition was upon the whole well informed of the events of that
time. But the narratives of Ceylon make it plain that that council was not called
to formulate the doctrines of Buddhism, but was merely a gathering of Buddhist
monks from a limited area to settle certain points of detail concerning monastic
morality. Individual monks had put questions to the meeting, as for instance,
whether it were lawful to eat solid food only at midday, or also in the afternoon
until the sun had cast a shadow two ells in length, whether it was lawful to keep
salt in buffalo horns, whether it was lawful to sit upon a chair covered with a
plain cloth, etc. We can readily understand that such a gathering of monks may
have ultimately grown to be considered a council, remembering the Buddhist
method of emphasising important facts by the multiplication of them. Thus, ac-
cording to later legends, there was not one Buddha only, but as many as twenty-
four before him ; the Buddha of the present age had not visited Ceylon once, but
three times, and so on. Thus the canonical teaching required not one but several
formulations, and it was not enough to magnify the synod of Vesali into a council ;
it was necessary to presuppose another council held immediately after the death
of Buddha, that of Rajagaha. This council indeed is mentioned only in appendices
which were apparently added to the canonical writings at a much later date.
(7) The Historical Personality of Buddha. — As the history of the Buddha
doctrine previous to Asoka is thus uncertain, we are justified in asking what
amount of historical truth is contained in the legends upon the personality of its
founder. The attempt has been made to deny the personal existence of Buddha ;
and this view lias been justified by the allegorical meaning of the chief names in
/*«.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 395
the personal history of Gotama. Suddhodana (p. 390) means " The man whose
food is pure," Maya1 means illusion (Vedanta philosophy), Kapilavastu means the
town of Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya philosophy, SiddhSrta means " He who
has fulfilled his task." Such scepticism is, however, far too sweeping. In March,
1895, in the Tera~i of Nepal, near the village of Nigliwa in the neighbourhood of
Gorakhpur, about ten miles distant from the ruins of a memorial mound (stupa),
an inscription of King (Asoka) Piyadasi (the "Pious;" cf. p. 406) was discovered
upon a pillar. This inscription states that Asoka in the fifteenth year of his reign
(225 B. c.) had set up for the second time the stupa of the Komagamana Buddha
(the mythical predecessor of the historical Buddha), and in the twenty-first year
of his reign (249 B. c.) had himself visited the spot and there performed his devo-
tions. The Chinese Hiuen Tsang (Yen tsung), who visited the shrines of the
Buddhists about 636 A. D., mentions the stupa and the inscription on the pillar.
Moreover, on the 1st of December, 1896, a pillar was examined near the village of
Paderia (thirteen miles from Nigliwa). This pillar had also been seen by Hiuen
Tsang. It rose nine feet above the ground, was covered with inscriptions made by
pilgrims, while upon the three feet of it below the level of the ground was found
an inscription written in very ancient characters in the " Brahmi " (formerly and
erroneously known as the " Maurya " or " Asoka ") alphabet, dating at least from
the year 800 A. D. The purport of the inscription was that Priyadars"in (Pali,
Piyadasi) after a reign of twenty years here makes his prayer in person, expressly
designates the spot a birthplace of Buddha, and makes the fact known by the erec-
tion of a stone pillar. At the same time, he remits the taxes due from the village
of Lummini (Pali, Lumbint: [p. 390] the modern Kumm-dei), and makes presents
to the inhabitants. Finally, William Caxton Peppe* while making excavations in
January, 1898, on his property at Pipra"wa" in the Tera"i, that is to say, in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of Kapilavastu, opened an ancient stupa and discovered a
finely worked sandstone chest covered by a giant slab, which, together with other
objects, contained bone fragments in an urn, and bore the following inscription :
" This resting place for the remains of the exalted Buddha is the pious offering of
the Sakya"s, the brother with his sisters, children and wives." There is no reason
whatever for casting doubt upon the authenticity of the inscription, and therefore
we may consider that this latter discovery (the objects are now in the museum
of Calcutta, while the bone fragments were given to the king of Siam) included
the actual remnants of Buddha himself, that is to say, one of the eight parts into
which the carefully preserved remnants of the enlightened one were divided, which
was handed over to the Sakyts of Kapilavastu after the death of Buddha and the
cremation of his corpse (cf. K. Pischel, die Echtheit der Buddha-reliquien ; sup-
plement to the " Allgemeine Zeitung" of January 7, 1902). It is but a few
years since methodical investigation into the field of Indian epigraphy was begun,
and researches in this direction will no doubt speedily bring yet more valuable
information to light.
For the rest of the life of Buddha we are forced to depend upon the internal
probability of the legendary stories. Of these, the main features are far too sim-
ple and natural to have been evolved by the riotous imagination of later times.
Especially is this true of the stories of his birth from a noble family, and his edu-
cation, his early marriage, his sympathy with the general sense of the futility of
life, his retirement from the world, the penances which he underwent, his renuncia-
396 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter iv
tion of Brahmanism, and his death. His personality is undoubtedly to be conceived
in strict accordance with tradition, for to that personality the new doctrine undoubt-
edly owed a great deal of its success. Especially credible is that part of the legend
which tells us of his dignified bearing, of his high intellectual endowments, of his
penetrating glance, the firmness of his convictions, his oratorical power, his gentle-
ness, kindness, and liberality, and the attractiveness of his character. When Ananda
informed his master of the fact that the Mailer Roya was an influential man whose
conversion would be highly advantageous to their party, " He poured such a flow of
love upon the Mailer that he could not but follow the teacher as the calf follows
the cow."
The benevolence of Buddha's character more than anything else drew the
hearts of mankind toward him. He had, no doubt, a carefully thought-out meta-
physical system of his own ; he made many rules to govern the life of his apostles,
which were either borrowed from Brahman orders or were innovations of his own,
but it was not to these that he owed his success. The great difference between
him and the Brahinaus was the deep warm love which he bore for his neighbours.
In his system under its later form, which still continues in Ceylon, we see only
the lifeless labours of his successors. In Buddha himself lived and worked the
originality of a high and lofty mind, coupled with the benevolent power of purity
and warmth of heart. The influence of these characteristics continued for at least
a century after his death, as is proved by the edicts of Asoka. This man was not a
Buddhist when he assumed the government of the powerful kingdom of Magadha
(269 B.C.). About 261 he was converted, though he did not make public profes-
sion of his faith before 259. The humauitarianism of his master finds a strong echo
in the decrees dictated by the glowing enthusiasm of his royal convert. Asoka
gives expression of his warm love for the whole of humanity. " All men are to
me as my children. As I wish my children welfare and prosperity in this and
the next world, so I do to men." Many of his numerous inscriptions on rocks
or pillars are intended for the instruction of his people upon the nature of true
religion. " What is Dhamma ? It is to flee from the evil and do the good, to be
loving, true, patient, and pure in life." The king forgets none of the essential vir-
tues, moral purity, truth, nobility of heart, kindness in word and deed, goodness to
all, respect and obedience to parents, love to children, tenderness to the weak,
kindness to all creatures, reverence to the priests, the utmost toleration for other
faiths, liberality in almsgiving, the avoidance of anger, passion, and cruelty. How
changed is Buddha's teaching in the dead conventionalism of its modern form !
One of Asoka's edicts, perhaps the last, gives us some indication of the date
when Buddha's doctrines first became stereotyped. This is the inscription of Bairat
<>r lihabra discovered in 1840 and assigned by Edmund Hardy to the year 249 B. c.
Here the later teaching first makes itself heard, and in this inscription only occur
the later expressions concerning Buddha, his doctrine and the community of his
believers, together with the phrase, " Everything that has been said by the exalted
Buddha is well said." Here alone is there any reference to the articles of a legal
code. According to R. S. Copleston, the decree of Bhabra was issued after the
Council of Patna, by which it was influenced, and in this council Buddhist teach-
ing was definitely formulated. The theory is further supported by the despatch of
many missionaries shortly after the conclusion of the council. A probable cause
of this step was the reformulation of the doctrine. Thanks to this mission and
™«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 397
especially to that of Mahinda, the son of Asoka himself (p. 501) to Ceylon, where
the doctrine has remained unchanged in all essentials, later Buddhism and its
history are fairly plain to us.
(8) Buddhism in the Period after Asoka. — Buddhism after Asoka, like the
doctrines of the Brahmans, is founded upon a metaphysical basis. The funda-
mental principle of every Buddhist doctrine is Bodhi (Budh = knowledge). The
connotation, however, of this term is in no way profound or comprehensive. The
Buddhist, unlike the Brahman, philosophy does not seek to probe the reason of all
existence, but while recognising that all life is suffering and that every act of suf-
fering involves fresh suffering, it confines itself to the discovery of release from
suffering. The fundamental pessimism thus characteristic of Buddhism is the
natural product of the age. The doctrine, however, is content with the fact of
suffering as it is. It does not seek to advance to the conception of a supreme being,
or even to the thought of an original world soul in a state of passivity. It does not
seek to explain suffering as did the Brahmans by supposing a descent on the part
of the supreme being to the lower levels of action. Questions of this kind are
beyond the sphere of that knowledge which it desires. Hence there is for Bud-
dhism no supreme divinity. Gods certainly exist, but far from being able to help
men, they suffer as men suffer. Thus for Buddha there are no thanks to be paid
to God, no prayers or requests, and consequently no mediator between God and
man, no priest, no sacrifice, no worship. The fact of a divine existence has been
banished from the philosophy of this religion. The problem of life none the less
remains to its adherents. What is the individual life ? What is the process of its
continuance by reincarnation ? How can the suffering of life come to an end ?
At this point Buddhist philosophy diverges from the Brahman system, which
posited an actual existence for the individual soul. According to Buddhism, there
is no being which passes into another upon death. Personal existence is brought
about by the conjuncture of a number of different elements which in themselves and
separately have no personality or soul. These five elements of life are matter,
feeling, imagination, will, and consciousness. The union of these is life, the divi-
sion of them death. Upon death, one thing alone survives, the moral consequence,
the final account of the good and the bad that has been done during life, the
Kamma, an element of impulse driving the other elements to reunite after death
and form another life. Like the beam of the scales, according to the nature of the
final reckoning, the reunited elements rise or fall, to the formation of higher or
lower beings. Thus not to be born again implies the extinction of that yearning for
existence. The Kamma being the consequence of actions performed in life, it can
only be destroyed if during life man avoids all temptation to action, that is,
renounces all desire.
At this point knowledge comes by her own ; he only who has this perfect in-
sight into the true connection of life and suffering can reach this height ; igno-
rance at the other end of the scale leads to continued action, to reincarnation and
further suffering. Thus the most important point is, according to the Buddhist
formula, the knowledge of the "four sacred truths." These embrace all that
Buddha meant by knowledge. They are most concisely stated in the sermon of
Benares (p. 391): "This, ye monks, is the sacred truth of suffering; birth is
suffering, age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering ; to be joined to
398 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
one thou dost not love is suffering, to be divided from thy love is suffering, to fail
of thy desire is suffering ; in short, the fivefold bonds that unite us to earth (those
of the five elements) are suffering. This, ye monks, is the sacred truth upon the
origin of suffering ; it is a yearning (for existence) which leads from new birth to
new birth, which finds its desire in different directions, the desire for pleasure,
the desire for existence, the desire for power. This, ye monks, is the sacred truth
concerning the release from suffering ; this desire must be extirpated by the entire
destruction of inclination, which must be avoided, put away, left behind, and driven
out. This, ye monks, is the sacred truth concerning the way to release from suffer-
ing ; it is this sacred eightfold path of right belief, right resolve, right speech, right
action, right life, right desire, right thought, and right self-absorption."
He who seeks relief in " Enlightenment " must first of all be convinced of the
truth about suffering, and must abhor all temporal attractions. Typical for him
must be the horror which seized Buddha upon his flight from the world at the
appearance of the old and broken man, of the man with a deadly disease, and of
the putrefying corpse (p. 390). This feeling the Buddhist must carefully cherish.
He must cultivate the habit of introspection by contemplation of the thirty-two
elements in the human body which arouse disgust, and by meditation on death
and corruption, for by these means only will he be brought to that frame of mind
for which temporal affairs have no attraction. He alone who retires from the world
— that is to say, the monk — can become a perfect Buddhist.
(e) Buddhist Monasticism. — Buddhist monasticism is in immediate connec-
tion with the Brahman monastic system ; as in the latter case a band of learners
gathers round a famous hermit, so also in the former. The yellow garment, the
shaven head, the alms pot are borrowings from an earlier period, as also are the
days of strict retirement during the phases of the moon, together with the solemn
penances (Uposadha) and the cessation from activity during the three months of
the rainy season. However from the very first the organisation of the order was
as weak and loosely connected as that of Brahman monasticism. Here, too, the
master left his pupils to their own resources, a process which might prove suc-
cessful provided that some clear mind or powerful intellect could be found to
command universal respect. This, however, was by no means invariably the case,
and the looseness with which the order was organised resulted not only in
schism, the chronic weakness of Buddhism, but also in its ultimate defeat upon
the revival of Indian Brahmanism.
A necessary preliminary to the constitution of a monastic order was the exist-
ence of non-monastic friends of the Buddhist teaching — the Upasakas. Any form
of human activity was in some way a contradiction of the command to leave the
Kiimma in complete passivity. The laity could thus never become Buddhists in
the full sense of the term, and belonged only to the second class of the order ; the
community properly so called consisted only of mendicant monks who depended
for a living upon the benevolence of others, and who considered their name of
beggar, or Bhikshu (Pali, Bhikkhu), as a laudatory title. In the course of time
certain rules of conduct were formulated for this class and stereotyped according
to the usual Buddhist method ; they are characterised by a spirit wholly alien to
the strong humanitarianism which pervades the teaching of Buddha himself. Ten
chief commands were binding upon the monk ; it was unlawful to kill any living
/,„/,„] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 399
thing (" either worm or ant ") ; nothing should be taken except what was given
(" not even a blade of grass ") ; falsehood was forbidden and the use of intoxicating
liquors ; family ties were to be renounced (" a hateful thing ") ; food was not to
be taken at the wrong time or at night ; wreaths or scents were not to be used,
and the monk was to sleep upon a mat spread upon the ground ; dancing, music,
singing or theatrical performances were to be avoided, and gold and silver were not
to be used.
The order was open to any who desired to enter it (disqualifications were in-
fectious diseases, such as leprosy, etc., slavery, official posts, the lack of parental
consent, etc.). The would-be monk must be more than twelve years old, was
obliged to pass a novitiate and receive full instruction upon the doctrine and
morality under a monk in full orders ; ordination, Upasampada, could not be un-
dergone before the twentieth year. The discipline imposed upon the monk the
"Middle way," as Buddha had already taught in the sermon of Benares (p. 391);
that is to say, his life was not to be a course of mortification, but everything was
to be excluded which passed the satisfaction of the simplest needs, or could in any
way lead to strengthen the ties binding the monk to the world. The habitation
was not to be placed too near villages or towns, the noise of which might disturb
contemplation, though at the same time it was to be near enough to enable the
mendicants to gain what they required. It was but rarely that a monk dwelt alone
in a " Pansala ; " in most cases several monks lived together. During the flourish-
ing period of the order great monasteries often sheltered a considerable number of
Bhikkhus within their walls. The clothing (the upper garment of yellow) was to
be entirely simple, and food was to be received in the alms dish from those who
were benevolent enough to give to the beggar. The first half of the day was to be
occupied in the task of mendicancy, and for the rest of the time the monk was to
devote himself to introspection and pious exercises. Twice during the month, at
the full and the new moon, the monks living within any one district collected for
their solemn confession ; the articles of confession (Patimokkha) were then read
aloud, and an opportunity was thus given to individuals to confess their trans-
gressions of Buddha's commands ; in these assemblies new monks were ordained
and business questions discussed. During the three months of the rainy season
(warsha ; Pali, wassa) the monk was not to wander about, but to remain quietly in
one place, either in his monastery or with some prosperous patron.
Gautama consented with much unwillingness to the foundation of a female
order (p. 392), considering that it involved great dangers to his doctrine. The
supervision of the nuns and the ordinances binding upon them were much stricter
than in the case of the monks who exercised a certain authority over the nuns.
The inscriptions of Asoka make mention of many nuns ; and under his govern-
ment the female order was transferred to Ceylon by his daughter Samghamitta.
However, it attained to no great importance, either in Ceylon or in India. Accord-
ing to the Singhalese chronicles, it seems to have entirely disappeared from the
island as early as the end of the first millennium A. D.
(C) Buddhism in its Importance to Indian Civilization. — An attempt to esti-
mate accurately the importance of Buddhism with reference to Indian civilization
must begin by answering these two questions, Has this doctrine satisfied the reli-
gious requirements of the people ? What has been the influence of its moral
400 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
teaching ? The Buddhist doctrine of liberation could bring complete satisfaction
only to a few dominant minds. It is a doctrine of cold and unsympathetic nature,
inasmuch as it offers no recompense for the infinite suffering of which the true
Buddhist must feel the sway. It offers no supreme being which can sympathise
with and relieve the miseries of human existence; it can promise no state of
beatitude where man will be recompensed for his sufferings upon earth ; it can
promise only mere annihilation and nonentity. The doctrine was of too abstract a
character to satisfy the great mass of the people who desire gods made in the
image of man and yearn for some supreme object of adoration which is at least
comprehensible to mankind.
The immediate consequence of these desires was the transformation and elabo-
ration of the legend concerning Buddha's life. It was not enough to attribute to
Buddha's supreme wisdom, almighty power, and thousands of miracles ; his person-
ality was also multiplied (see pp. 187, 394). When the true doctrines have fallen
into decay and mankind has become evil, there appears at long intervals a new
Buddha to resume the teaching of the same doctrines of salvation. The Buddha
Siddhartha (Pali, Siddhattha) is said to have been preceded by as many as twenty-
four Buddhas, the last of which was Kasyapa ; and five thousand years after the
passing of Buddha into Nirvana a new Buddha, Maitreya, will arise. Of these
personalities legends innumerable exist ; the worshipper demands to see them in
concrete form, and hence every Buddhist temple and palace is adorned with their
likenesses and portraits, and especially with reproductions of Gautama (see the
plates " Early Indian Sculpture " and " Buddha and his Pupils," p. 390 and
p. 519). This desire for some tangible object of veneration appeared immediately
upon the death of the master. A general demand arose for some sacred relic of
the deceased, and his earthly remains were collected from the ashes of the funeral
pyre and divided ; in course of time the demand for relics increased in proportion
to the distribution of the doctrine, and in every country of Buddhist faith there
arose many thousands of shrines containing relics, stupas, or DSgobas (see the plate,
p. 501) the goal of millions of pious pilgrims.
These relics were, however, purely symbolical. Buddha himself had entered
the Nirvana, into nothingness ; the people, however, demanded living gods and
Buddha himself had not denied the existence of these. The people as a whole
were not so penetrated with the sense of the great suffering of existence, as were
the philosophical monks, although they suffered more than these from the petty
cares of life and their daily occurrences. Their old gods were called in to help in
this department. The Buddhist mechanically repeats his formula of refuge ; but
in practice that refuge is made with the Aryan, Brahman, and Dravidian gods, in-
cluding the sacred figtree and the Naga snake, the sun and the stars, the evil
demons of the Dravidian faith and the bright forms of Vishnu or Siva. All of
these deities, together with Gautama, find a place in the broad creed of the Bud-
dhist devotee, and during a solemn procession their grotesque images are carried
side by side with the benevolent features of the Enlightened. In reality the
earthly fate of the Buddhist is still guided by those old gods whom the master
thought to set aside as of secondary importance. They are no doubt mere me-
chanical additions to the Buddhist faith in the southern districts of Buddhism, as
f<>r instance in Southern India about the year 1000 A. D. and in Ceylon, Burniah,
and Siara at the present day (see the plates, pp. 501 and 519) ; on the other hand
,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 401
in northern Buddhism (Tibet, Mongolia, etc.) the doctrine with which they have
been incorporated has been so entirely transformed by their influence that the
original system of Gautama is scarcely recognisable.
The ethical teaching of Buddhism is not based upon divine authority but upon
individual egoism ; moral duties or virtues as such are non-existent, utilitarianism
being the guiding principle. This principle indeed inspires the commands respect-
ing personal behaviour, self-restraint, the government of the senses, self-sufficiency,
vigilance. Indeed every command explaining a man's duty to his neighbour, such
as the exaggerated care against the taking even of animal life, the exhortations to
sympathy, kindness, and benevolence, etc., spring not from the ground of the heart,
but from the purely selfish desire to advance by their fulfilment toward the ulti-
mate goal of liberation. The moral teaching of Buddha, as regards the manner in.
which it makes kindness and love binding upon all men, is high above the ethical
system of the Brahmans and far below the purity and nobility of Christianity.
Especially is it lacking in moral force. How indeed could a religion provide a.
strong and energetic ethical system when its chief duties consisted in the entire
avoidance of action and its highest aim in total extinction (Nirvana). The indo-
lence of the system has been stamped upon the whole Buddhist world ; stricken
with fear at the thought of suffering, its strength lies rather in endurance and
passivity than in action. In a people enervated by such beliefs it is impossible to
expect any powerful bond of union, any feeling for the greatness of race or state,
any sense of patriotism. We do not forget what the princes did for their people,
but at the same time this could only be a drop in the ocean ; they cared for the
poor and the sick, planted fruit trees on the roads, constructed great works of irri-
gation, were liberal, especially toward the monastic orders. But this very liber-
ality was a cause of further weakness ; the best and the richest districts fell into
the hands of the orders, and many strong arms were thereby condemned to inac-
tivity. Meanwhile the people became impoverished, and bore their sad existence
with resignation or indifference.
The caste system (p. 374) Buddha no more attempted to set aside than the
gods ; in his view both of these were necessary institutions as existing from the
creation of the world. The great difference between his teaching and that of
the Brahmans consists in the fact that he meant his precepts of humanitarianism
to be binding upon all the castes. His followers were to be kind and benevolent
even to the low-born Sudra, and were not forbidden even to accept food from this
caste. At the same time a caste feeling was deeply rooted in Buddha and the
whole of his order ; though we often hear of the reception of distinguished mem-
bers of the higher and the highest castes by the master during his lifetime, in-
stances of such treatment of the Sudra Buddhists do not occur. Even at the
present day the collective Buddhist sects of Ceylon are recruited solely from the
highest castes.
Buddhism is also open to the further reproach of having done nothing to raise
the social position of the woman. The founder showed the greatest reluctance,
and was induced only by a strong pressure from without to admit the woman
within his community, and even then she was not placed upon an equality with the
man. Generally speaking, the only consolation he had to give to the woman in her
subordinate position was that she must bear her burden because it was appointed
by the order of things in the same way as the burden of a Sudra or of a worm.
VOL. II — 26
402 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chtq.tr, -/r
Severe but true is Bishop Copleston's criticism of Buddhism, — that it lowers
mankind by the very assertion of man's supremacy.
(77) Jainism. — Buddhism, though the most successful, was not the only reli-
gious system which rose during that period of intellectual movement. Contempo-
rary with Gautama was that personality to whom the now existing sect of the
Jains refers the origin of its religion ; his name was Nataputta (Sanscrit, Jnatri-
putra) though he was known by his adherents as Mahavira Wardhamana or the
revered Jina (world conqueror). He too had his origin in that centre of intellec-
tual movement on the lower Ganges, and his life and teaching are marked by many
points of resemblance to his more important contemporary. Like Buddha he was
the son (born 599 B. c.) of a distinguished Kshatriya, by name Siddharta, who was
apparently governor of the outlying town of Kandapura of Vesali (p. 393) where
the feudal aristocracy was as predominant as among the Sakya. Oil his mother's
side he was related to King Bimbisara of Magadha (p. 391) and like Gautama he
found in this king a patron of his doctrine ; indeed these two religious systems
owe their prosperity primarily to the existence of that great kingdom and its ruler.
Until his twenty-eighth year Nataputta lived with his parents ; then, however,
like Gautama, he joined the Brahman ascetics and lived for twelve years under
their rules, surpassing all but one of these in the severest penances as a naked
ascetic (gymnosophist). Thus he arrived at supreme knowledge or Kewala and so
acquired for his soul freedom from its earthly trammels. The last thirty years of
his life (until 527) were devoted to the dissemination of his teaching and to the
organisation of the community he founded.
His honorary title of Jina has been taken by the sect which he founded, the
Jains. They believe in a great number of prophets of their faith anterior to N£ta-
putta, and pay special reverence to the last of these, Parsva, or ParsvanStha.
Herein they are correct, in so far as this latter personality is more than mythical.
He was indeed the royal founder of Jainism (776 ?), while his successor, Mahavira,
was younger by many generations, and can only be considered as a reformer. As
early as the time of Gautama, the religious confraternity founded by Parsva, and
known as the Nigantha (Sanscrit, Nigrantha), was a formally established sect, and,
according to the Buddhist chronicles, threw numerous difficulties in the way of the
rising Buddhism. The numerous points of correspondence between Buddhism and
Jainism are sufficiently explained by the fact that both systems originated in
Brahman teaching and practice. The formation of the Jain canon dates from the
fifth century A. D., during which period the " holy " scriptures were established at
the Council of Valabhi, under the presidency of Devarddhiganiu. But A. F. K.
Hoernle puts this council as early as 154 ; and according to Hermann Jacobi the
writings from which the canon has been formed are as early as the first and per-
haps the second or third centuries B. c.
The Jains, like the Buddhists, accept the Brahman theory of the misery of
existence and the necessity for liberation. Where, however, the Buddhist philoso-
phy diverges from the Brahman, they follow the older creed. According to their
system, the soul has a real atid self-contained existence ; during life it is fettered
to the base elements of the material body, which it leaves upon death. The soul
is then enclosed in a form of ethereal lightness until the Karma (Kamma, p. 397),
the ethical resultant of the actions performed in life, obliges it to become reincar-
H
LJ
p
o
s ^
W
J
CX,
S
W
H
fe
O
tf
o
2
w
H
EXPLANATION OF THE PICTURE OVERLEAF
Abu is a lofty mountain about 5000 feet high, in Sirohi, one of the twenty States of the
Rajputana district in North- West India, lying on the north-west border of the Aravali chain,
well known for its mineral wealth. Here, together with the summer quarters of the British
Government agent, are situated five temples, forming one of the most sacred spots visited by the
Jain pilgrimages. Two of these, built in white marble and erected in 1031 and 1200 A.u.
respectively, are ranked among the most beautiful examples of Indian architectural skill.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 403
nate and to resume the burden of suffering. Buddhist philosophy culminates in
the release from this necessity of reincarnation, — that is to say, in nonentity;
whereas the Jains assumed the existence of an elaborate system of higher and
highest beings which claim veneration from mankind. In the different regions
occupied by these divine personalities, the Jina, or all-conquerors, take the highest
place. They alone, released from death and from new birth, live in eternal and
absolute purity. They are the souls, freed from all earthly trammels, of the great
prophets, who are far more numerous in this religion than in Buddhism. Time is
divided into three parts, — present, past, and future; and in each of these divisions
twenty-four Jinas appear at long intervals to bring knowledge to the world of those
lofty truths leading to salvation. The twenty-third Jina of the present earthly
period was Pars' vanatha, and the twenty-fourth, Mahavira. All of these, by precept
and example, have shown to the world the path to liberation, which consists in
purity of faith, in true insight, and in virtue undetiled.
True faith consists in belief in the Jina and in the whole system of higher
beings ; true insight is provided by the philosophical system of the Jains. Accord-
ing to this system, both the world and the soul have an eternal objective existence.
The misfortune of the soul consists in its connection with the body, and when its
desire for action is extinguished it becomes free. The precepts of pure virtue coin-
cide almost entirely with those of the Buddhist teaching. The live fundamental
precepts of the Jain monks are the same as the first four of the Brahmans, and run
as follows : Thou shalt not kill any living being ; thou shalt not lie ; thou shalt
not take what has not been given to thee ; thou shalt refrain from intercourse with
worldly relations. The fifth precept includes within itself the remaining precepts
of the Buddhist monks : thou shalt renounce all earthly possessions, and chiefly
shalt call nothing thine own. While insisting upon the importance of these com-
mandments, the Jain teaching also recognises the value of asceticism in its severest
form as an aid to liberation. About the year 80 A. D. this point led to the schism
between the two main sects of this religion, which, however, agree upon funda-
mental principles, — the Digambara, " those who are clothed with the vault of
heaven" (that is, the naked), and the Svet&mbara, "those clothed in white."
Centres and objects of worship are numerous, as might be expected from the
high importance attached to the divine beings. All Jain temples are placed by
preference upon lofty mountains, such as Mount Abu (see the plate, " The Interior
of a Jain Temple at Mount Abu1 in Eajputana"), Mount Girnar in Gujerat, etc.
These buildings are adorned with rich decoration, and with a wealth of designs
representing the different Jiuas with their tokens (the ox, the ape, the fish, etc.).
This religion is in existence at the present day, and has enjoyed great prosperity
at different periods, as, for instance, during the fifth century A. D. in the Deccan,
the sixth century in Gujerat, etc. According to the last census (that of 1891),
1,417,000 Jains are found in India, nearly half per cent (0.49) of the whole popu-
lation. They are also represented in places where a large number of Hindoos
have immigrated, as in East Africa. Everywhere they enjoy the reputation of
honourable and capable men. In the larger towns of Northern India and also in
the Deccan their reliability and commercial industry has enabled them to acquire
prosperity and often great wealth. Their benevolence often borders on the ludi-
Temple, named Vimala Sah, erected in 1032, according to Fergusson.
404 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapter iv
crous. We refer to many of the hospitals for animals which they have founded,
in their custom of wearing a respirator and carrying a small broom to avoid killing
even insects by involuntarily swallowing or crushing them.
(e) The Period from the Expedition of Alexander the Great to the Entrance of
Mohammedanism. — From the earliest times the inexhaustible natural riches of
the great plains of the Ganges have been a source of prosperity and of misfortune
to India. In every age this district has proved a strong attraction to foreign
peoples. The great Aryan immigration was the first movement of the kind of
\vhic;h we hear, but by no means the last. Ktesias, Arrian, and others relate
legends which speak of the invasion of Assyrian rulers, of Niuus and Semiramis ;
and though these may be purely mythical figures, yet those legends undoubtedly
rest upon some historical foundation. Diodorus quotes the name of an Indian
king (ii. 19), Stabrobates (the lord of draught animals). It is true that this name
appears rather Iranian than Indian. However, upon Assyrian monuments (for
example, the obelisk of Salmanassar II belonging to the year 842 B.C.) are repre-
sentations of the Indian elephant and the rhinoceros which were led before the
victorious king, together with his prisoners. At a later period the Persian Cyrus
is said to have undertaken a fruitless campaign to India, and upon his defeat to
have retired to the same desert of Gedrosia (see Vol. Ill, p. 137) through which
Alexander retreated with his Macedonians. There is no doubt that Darius Hys-
taspes subdued the races north of the Cabul Kiver and west of the Indus, and
explored the course of this latter stream (about 510 B.C.). Those tribes formed a
special satrapy of Persia (see Vol. Ill, p. 143), and their contingents are said by
Herodotus to have fought under Xerxes against the Greeks.
(a) Alexander's Expedition against India. — The Indian expedition of Alex-
ander the Great (see Vol. IV, p. 126) is the earliest established chronological fact
in the history of India. In the year 327 B. c. he started from Sogdiana and Bactria
with about one hundred thousand warriors. Advancing along the Cabul Eiver he
was repeatedly obliged to wage desperate conflicts with the bold mountain races-
and to destroy many of their fortified posts, but he arrived in the spring of the
following year at the Indus frontier of the rich district of Five Eiver Land.
The peoples there settled had changed but little since the time when their
brothers had marched eastward into the Ganges district, had there founded States
(p. 371), and had struggled with the rising power of Brahmanism, with which they
had eventually compromised (p. 373). At that time the population was divided
into a number of smaller tribes, the warrior caste holding the predominant posi-
tion. Here Alexander met with a wholly unexpected resistance. Plutarch says-
of them that the bravest and most warlike of the Indians were the " mercenaries,
who marched from one town to another defending each position to the last, and
inflicting great loss upon Alexander." So intense was the animosity of the con-
queror to this caste that, after promising unmolested retirement to the Kshatriya
defenders of a town, he laid in ambush for them and destroyed them during
their retreat. And " no less was the vexation caused him by the Indian philoso-
phers, who reviled the kings who joined him and stirred up the free populations;
l'"i- this cause he hanged many of them."
Though the old bravery remained, the old tribal feuds had by no means died
aw*] ] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 405
out, and Alexander was greatly helped by the strained relations subsisting be-
tween the Gandhara and their eastern neighbours, the Puru, the most important
irace in Five River Land. The Gandha*ra king Taxiles (also known as Omphis
•or Mophis) joined with other chiefs in doing homage to the invader, and sup-
ported Alexander's army with his own troops. In the spring of 326 the Greeks
•crossed the Indus near the modern Attok (according to Fr. Pincott, at Arab), and
after receiving the homage of the people of Taxila (Deri Shdhan, near Lahore ;
'Sanscrit, TakshaSila, that is, the rock of the Takshas, a Scythian tribe), marched
against the Puru prince Porus. This monarch awaited the Greek advance on the
•eastern bank of the Hydaspes (Jilam ; p. 364). The Kshatriya fought with the
courage of despair, and the greater portion of the Puru warriors were left upon
the field of battle. The aged and heroic prince upon his war elephant only re-
treated when he found his army destroyed, his two sous slain, and himself seri-
ously wounded. Not only did the Macedonians leave him his kingdom, but they
added to it a number of conquered districts. After a rest of thirty days Alexander
advanced upon a fresh campaign ; he had received reliable information concerning
the peoples of the fruitful Ganges district, their populous towns and splendid
capitals. However, his army deserted him at Hyphasis (Bias) in the year 325,
and the world conqueror had come to the end of his victorious career. In boats
and rafts he sailed down stream to the mouth of the Indus, and there divided his
army into two parts. One of these returned to Persia by sea under Nearchus,
while he himself was forced to retreat through the waterless desert of Gedrosia
under a burning August sun, and saved but a few remnants of the other half.
Shortly afterward Alexander succumbed to his fatigues, his excesses, and the effects
of the climate, in the summer of 323.
(/3) The Kingdom of Mayadha ; Chandragupta and Asoka. — Alexander's
Indian campaign had been of short duration, but the irresistible nature of his
onset was only equalled by the importance of its consequences to the country ;
from the various tribes who had resisted the foreigners was formed the powerful
Magadha kingdom. Among those who had been brought over to Alexander's
side by the hope of personal advantage was an adventurer known as Chandragupta
(the Sandrocottus of the Greeks). A Sudra by birth (from his mother Mura',
a low caste woman, the royal family which succeeded the Nanda was known
as the Maurya dynasty), his position upon the lower Ganges had become unten-
able for him by reason of his intrigues. The confusion caused by the advance
of Alexander into Five Eiver Land seemed to him a favourable occasion for the
realisation of his ambitions, and he contrived to maintain connection with both of
the two parties. After the retreat and death of Alexander dissensions broke out
among the Greek party remaining in the country ; Porus was murdered by a Greek
leader, Eudemus, and the Diadochi began a series of bloody quarrels over the
division of the empire. Chandragupta then placed himself at the head of the
Indian movement, secured the predominance of the Punjab in 316 B.C., and in
the following year gained possession of the Magadha kingdom, which, under his
rule (f 296 B. c.), extended from the mouth of the Indus to the mouth of the
Ganges. Seleucus I Nicator found Magadha so powerful in 303 that he considered
it more prudent to secure the alliance of his eastern neighbour by giving him his
daughter in marriage and renouncing his claim to Eastern Gedrosia, Arachosia, and
406 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chui,t,vi\'
Paropamisus. The excellent terms upon which these two princes lived is evidenced
by their mutual despatch of ambassadors to the courts of Babylon and Pataliputra
(see Vol. IV, p. 147).
The first detailed description composed by an eye-witness of India and its
people is that for which we have to thank the Greek representative Megasthenes.
Only a few fragments remain to us of his work entitled " Indica;" but even from
these we may learn many important details of the conditions of life in the
Magadha kingdom. From a Greek point of view the description is highly pre-
possessing. Megasthenes praises the population for their honesty, uprightness,
strength, moderation, and peaceful inclinations, though they are ready to repel
invaders by force of arms. The prosperity of the State rested upon agriculture ;
this occupation was considered so sacred that it was not to be interrupted even in
time of war, and the farmer could peacefully till his land while bloody battles
were proceeding in the immediate neighbourhood. The kingdom was defended by
a numerous well-organised and highly trained warrior class, — one of the seven
classes (castes) of the people, between which so sharp a line of demarcation ex-
isted that they could not even eat together. The land was common property, and
one-fourth of the produce was paid over to the State to meet government ex-
penses. The Buddhist ascetics (Sramans) were then considered a subdivision of
the Brahmaus.
The grandson of Chaudragupta, the son and successor of Bindusara, Asoka
(Sanscrit, A£oka; 269 to 232 B. c.), was the most powerful ruler of ancient India ;
his kingdom extended over the greater half of the peninsula, and his influence far
beyond these limits. After thousands of years no king has received such deep
veneration as this Magadha ruler, whose name even to-day is deeply honoured
from the shores of the Black Sea to the furthest islands of Eastern Asia, and from
the shores of the polar ice to the equator. It is not to the greatness of his politi-
cal power that he owes his fame, but to the gospel of human love, which he sub-
stituted for the teaching of Gautama (see above, p. 394).
The Magadha kingdom, with its capital of Pataliputra (Patna), founded by
Chandragupta in the year 315 B.C., was not destined to exist for long; its most
brilliant period is the reign of Asoka, the grandson of its founder, under whom
it extended from Afghanistan to the district of the modern Mysore, and from
Kathiawad to Orissa (see the map, p. 430; cf. also p. 500). Less than a cen-
tury after the accession of the great king, and one hundred and thirty-seven
years after the founding of the Maurya dynasty, the last ruler, the tenth of the
dynasty, was overthrown by his general, Brihadratha. The succeeding dynasty of
the Shunga lasted only one hundred and twelve years (178 to 66 B. c.) ; the king-
dom of the Kanwa, who succeeded, gradually diminished as the Scythians increased
in importance.
(7) The Scythian Tibetan Kingdom in Northwest India. — The natural condi-
tions of the Asiatic Highlands impose a nomadic life upon the inhabitants (cf.
above, Chapter II). Mongc >lian, Turko-Tartar, and Scythian peoples were continually
struggling for the possession of the grass steppes and pasture lauds after the immi-
gration of the Aryans. Race collided with race, and, like a wave driven before
the stormy blast, confusion reached the uttermost limits of the country. An
unusually strong upheaval of this nature had disturbed these nomadic tribes in the
Indi
*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 407
second century B. c. The Mongolian tribe of the Hiung nu, living east of the Oxus
district in the steppes between Khiva and Khotan, had attacked the Tibetan Yue
tshi (p. 140), who are, no doubt, to be identified with the Scythian Issedones
(p. 146) upon their western frontier. This tribe they had defeated and forced
to emigrate. The conquered nation then advanced upon the Grseco-Bactrian king-
dom, founded about 250 B. c. by Diodotus (Vol. IV, p. 159), a kingdom which had
now advanced beyond the Indus to the Punjab. Before the onslaught of these
invaders the predominance of the Greeks in Bactria proper came to an end shortly
after the year 140 B. c. A Scythian offshoot, the Sakae (see above, p. 135), under
the leadership of the kings Maues (100 B.C.) and Azes (70 B.C.), turned toward
the Indus, and following the course of this river southward to Sindh ultimately
arrived at Gujerat. Another tribe, the Kushana (Kushans), followed the Cabul
Elver into the Punjab under the prince Kozulo (Kujula) Kadphises. Here they
destroyed the last remnants of the Greek supremacy (Hermseus) in the year 25s. c.,
and the following king, Huemo Kadphises, extended his power over the larger part
of Northwest India (p. 144).
The most important ruler of this dynasty was the next king, Kanishka, whose
kingdom extended from Yarkand and Khokand to Gujerat, and from Afghanistan
as far as the Jumna. From his anointing (the 15th of March, 78 A. D.) dates the
"Saka Chronology." A. M. Boyer and others consider Nahapana as the founder of
this kingdom. Upon their advance into India the Scythian hordes came in contact
with Buddhism, and enthusiastically embraced this new religion. Like Asoka,
Kanishka called a special council at Kashmir to reformulate the doctrine of
Buddha. Supplementary explanations were then added to the three Pitakas of
the Council of Patna (p. 393). From this council it appears that even at that time
the old doctrines of Buddhism had not been preserved in their original purity in
Northern India, but had undergone considerable changes under the influence of
Brahman and Dravidian ideas. At the same time, it is probable that the deities
introduced by the Scythians were not entirely without influence upon the conclusions
drawn up by the council of the mighty Scythian ruler.
(S) The Hindu Dynasty of North and Central India during the First Millen-
nium A.D. — The kingdom founded by Kadphises, like that of Chandragupta,
reached its most nourishing period under the second successor of the founder, while
its importance begins to decrease after the third century A. D., when other dynasties
and States became more prominent. However, the history of India during the first
millennium A. D. appears to the modern inquirer like a great mosaic picture, in
which only individual or small related groups of stones are now recognisable.
Coins, casual reports from travellers (especially Chinese), and inscriptions show
us movement and counter movement, rise and decay among States both small and
great, but in no case is it possible to reconstruct the history in detail. In many
cases we have only the most scanty sources of information, a few isolated names
and events ; while other States certainly existed and have left not a trace of their
career behind.
The famous Maurya dynasty began to decay shortly after the time of Asoka,
but the old splendour reappeared for a moment under the dynasty founded by
Gupta (290 A. D.). This king, who had formerly been a vassal of Magadha, made
himself independent, and under his grandson Chandragupta I and his immediate
408 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
successors the prosperity of the kingdom advanced so rapidly that it included all
the territory between Nepal and the Narbada, between Cutch and the Ganges delta.
During the sixth century, however, the prosperity of the realm was shattered by the
attack of the " White Huns " (Huna ; cf. p. 155 ad Jin.} in the year 515. These in-
vaders were utterly defeated about 530 near Kahror by YaSodharma, a vassal of the
Gupta kingdom. He himself assumed the predominance and further extended the
boundaries of the kingdom, though its history from this point is only known to us
by a number of royal titles.
A kingdom of larger extent further to the south was also formed during the
struggle with the White Huna, who had left their habitations on the Oxus after
the year 435 A. D. and had invaded India. In the struggle against their king,
Mihirakula YaSodharma, had been anticipated by another vassal of the Gupta
kingdom, Sanapati Bhatarka (495 A. D.). This prince was the founder of the
Valabht dynasty and kingdom, which attained a high measure of prosperity
under his sixth successor, Dhruwaseiia. It included Gujerat, extending to the
Narbada. The rulers at one time showed special favour to Buddhism, and at
another transferred their preference to the Brahrnans or to the Jains, who still
count many adherents in the old Valabhi district. At the Council of Valabht
(p. 402) the canons of this latter doctrine were definitely formulated under the
presidency of Devarddhiganin Kshamashramana.
To the second half of the first millennium A. D. belongs the development of an
important Hindu kingdom in the Deccan, that of the Chalukya (see the map,
p. 430). This race is considered to have come from Northern India, and the
founder of the dynasty, Jayasimha I, established himself about 500 A. D. in the
Deccan at the expense of the Dravidian Pallavas. The new Hindu kingdom
rapidly increased in size and power, and in the following millennium embraced the
greater portion of the Deccan. In the year 630 it was divided into an eastern and
a western kingdom. The Chalukya prince, Vishnuwardhana, obtained the king-
dom on the east coast (Wengi), which included the coast line between the mouths
of the Krishna and Godaveri. For a long period he was at war with the Chola on
the south, and eventually succumbed to their attacks in 1060. The western
Chalukya were a flourishing kingdom until the year 747 A. D., and were then con-
quered and reduced to great weakness by the liashtrakuta (Gujerat). After a long
period of depression, Tailapa Deva, the son of Vikrama'ditya IV, conquered the
Bashtrakiita of Malkhed and also Malava and the Chola in 973, and became the
founder of the later Chalukya dynasty, whose kingdom disappears toward the end
of the twelfth century, when it was divided among a number of branch dynasties.
(e) Hinduism. — This period of political change and complete racial fusion
had gradually obliterated the points of contrast existing between the original races
and peoples. The unity of the Indian people, Hinduism as it is in modern times,
had been slowly formed from this former ethnical dualism. Its character is marked
by two special peculiarities, — religious belief and social institutions (castes).
(1) Buddhism ; its Extension and Division into Southern and Northern Types ;
its End in India. — During the time of Asoka we find great points of difference
existing within the sphere of religious belief. The Brahman doctrine of the nature
of the world and the Deity was a purely esoteric system of belief, the other castes,
»<«•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 409
and particularly the great mass of the Sftdra, believing in the power of demons.
Within the Brahman school of thought a third faith had arisen, — Buddhism.
This had been at first tolerated by the Brahmans, as they had failed to recognise
the points of opposition to their system which its teaching involved. It has
largely to thank Asoka for the vigour of its advance. It was preached throughout
India by the royal missionaries, and introduced into Ceylon immediately after the
Council of Patna. It also penetrated far beyond the boundaries of its Indian birth-
place. During the first century of our era it reached China, where it was recognised
as the State religion during the fourth century (p. 81). In 372 it was introduced
from China into Korea (p. 116), reaching in the fourth and fifth centuries Cochin
China, Ava, Formosa, Mongolia (p. 166), and Japan during the sixth century
(p. 10). At an even earlier period that form of it established in the Pali canon
had passed from Ceylon to Burmah (450 B. c.), and afterward became the dominant
faith in Siam (638) ; it was brought to Java from the Indian continent in the sixth
or seventh century. We have a striking example of the powerful influence which
its teaching of liberation and its humanitarianism exercised even upon uncivilized
nations in the case of the Scythians (Kanishka). At the Council of Kashmir
(p. 407) the doctrines formulated at Patna were reasserted.
But even at that time in the north of India a schismatic movement had begun,
due to the introduction of a barren system of dialectic, and also to the perversion
of the doctrine and worship by the Dravidian belief in demons. At a later period
the belief underwent so great a transformation among the Tartar and Mongolian
peoples that the northern Buddhism of the present day is merely a frightful cari-
cature of the pure Buddhist doctrine (p. 186). The soul to which Gautama had
denied an objective existence was reintroduced as an element of belief, and the
soul of the future Buddhas, the Bodhisattwas, especially those of the Manjusri and
the Avalokitesvara, were accorded divine veneration, becoming personifications of
the mystical religious knowledge and of the spirit of the Buddhist churches, while
almighty power was typified in a third divinity, Vajradhara. Thus the heaven of
this Buddhist sect was provided with a Trimurti (p. 367). To this trinity were
attributed the most abhorrent characteristics of the lower gods, and Shamanist
customs and incantations, together with bloody sacrifices, were introduced into the
worship. This incorporation of Indian Dravidian ideas and customs with Bud-
dhism is chiefly the work of the Indian monk Asanga, who lived in Peshawar in
the Punjab during the sixth century A. D. The resulting doctrine, called by the
northern Buddhists the "great chariot," to distinguish it from that which they
contemptuously termed the " little chariot " (the earlier Buddhism), together with
the conception that the spirit of the churches became incarnate in one temporal
head, eventually led to the development of Lamaism in the countries to the north
of India, for which compare p. 187.
Next to the Asoka inscriptions the most important sources of information upon
Indian Buddhism are the accounts of the Chinese Buddhists who made pilgrimages
to the sacred shrines of their religion, especially the reports of Fa hien (400-414
A. D. ; p. 89) and of Hiuen Tsang (629-645 ; p. 83). From Fa hieii we learn that
in the whole o*~ Nearer India the two doctrines, the " great chariot," Mahayana,
and the " small chariot," Hinayana, existed side by side, though at the same
time the Brahman teaching counted numerous adherents. At the time of Hiuen
Tsang, Kashmir was entirely given up to northern Buddhism, while the " small
410 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
chariot " was predominant in Western and Southern India ; in the Ganges district
Buddhism suffered greatly from the competition of Brahmanism. Hiuen Tsang
was present at the Council of Kanauj, where the doctrines of the northern sect
were formulated. Buddha's birthplace (p. 390) was at that time in ruins, but his
religion was even then firmly established in those countries in which he had
himself been personally active. In the rest of India the old doctrine was still
highly flourishing, and only in Kalinga had it been driven back by the rise of
Brahmanism.
Shortly after the pilgrimage of Hiuen Tsang serious misfortunes came upon
the Buddhists. These are most probably to be explained by persecutions, which
were at most purely local ; Indian Buddhism collapsed more from internal weak-
ness and diversity of growth than from the open hostility of other religions.
Shortly after the conclusion of the first millennium A. D., about 1200, it had ceased
to exist almost throughout India. The princes of Kashmir and Orissa supported
it for a time ; but about 1340 its last stronghold, Kashmir, also fell, and when the
first Mohammedan kingdom of India was founded, nearly the whole population
(with the exception of some few adherents in Bengal and Orissa, together with the
Jains) acknowledged the gods of the Hindu religion.
(2) The Hindu Religion. — Those long-continued political disturbances which
we have described proved unfavourable to the strengthening of religious conviction.
Among the Brahmans a period of deep metaphysical speculation had been succeeded
by a period of repose, while the lowest gods and the rudest forms of worship had
been gradually accepted by the people at large. It was not until the eighth cen-
tury that the reaction began. Tradition names Kumarila, who lived in the first
half of that century, as at once the deadly enemy of the Buddhists and the reviver
of the Brahman religion. But the first great reformer probably so called was
Sarikara Acharya (born in the Deccan in 788 ; chiefly active in Northern India,
and died in the Himalayas, 820), who revived the Veda"nta philosophy and created
the new popular Hindu religion. The esoteric portion of his doctrine acknowledges
one unique supreme god, the Brahma" Para Brahma", the creator and governor of
the world, who is to be worshipped by mystical introspection ; the elements of
religious ^thought extant in the people as a whole he united and inspired in the
figure of Siva. The great apostle of the worship of Vishnu, on the other hand, was
Ramanuja, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century. His doctrines were
preached by Kabir (1380-1420) in Bengal and Chaitanya (born 1485) in Orissa.
From the time of those reformers onward Siva and Vishnu have been the corner-
stones of Hindu worship. In the popular religion Brahma" retires into the
background.
The fundamental element in the philosophical conception of Vishnu is imma-
nence, so that this kindly helping god becomes properly the god of incarnations, of
Avataras. His being permeates all things, and hence he may appear in most dif-
ferent forms. Whenever gods or men arc reduced to the extremities of need, Vishnu
brings them help in one or another of his manifestations. Legend numbers many
of these incarnations (in all twenty-two), but the generally accepted number is ten.
I n the first three the god appears as the fish, the tortoise, the boar ; in the fourth, as
the male lion ; and in the later incarnations in human form, first as a dwarf ; after-
ward in the sixth, seventh, and eighth as rarastirama, as Rftmatshandra, and as
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 411
Krishna, — that is, in forms taken from the heroic legends of Indian antiquity
(see pp. 371, 374,389). Of these incarnations Krishna has become the most popu-
lar, the people recognising a national characteristic in the amusing tricks assigned
to Krishna by the legend. The representation of Buddha as the ninth incarnation
of Vishnu no doubt belongs to a period when an attempt was made to unite Bud-
dhism with the Hindu religion. A later theory also considers Buddha under this
incarnation as an agent provocateur, who tempts the wicked to scorn the Vedas
and the laws of caste in order to secure their eventual destruction, and so to free
the world of them. Finally, the last incarnation of Vishnu belongs to the future ;
at the end of the present age the god will appear as Kalki and found a new
kingdom of purity.
In the conception of Siva, Brahman ideas of " darkness " meet the demon beliefs
of the Dravidians. It is among the mountain tribes of the Himalaya (p. 358) that
the figure of Siva, the " mountain spirit," originates, borrowed from Kii&ta, a divin-
ity given over to sensual pleasures, drinking, and dance (Nateswara, lord of the
dancers), and followed by a train of lower spirits. The fundamental conception of
the Dravidian races of divinity as evil in nature is commingled with the Brahman
ideas of darkness in the person of Siva, the god of destruction. As Eudra he per-
sonifies the destructive forces of nature ; as Mahakala, the dissolving power of time ;
as Bahirava, he is the destroyer, or destruction as such; and as BhutesVara,
adorned with a garland of snakes and death's-heads, he is the supreme deity of all
the demons of the Dravidian belief (see the upper half of the plate, " Early Indian
Sculpture," p. 390). Thus Siva is rather a Dravidian Vishnu than an Aryan crea-
tion, as indeed is manifested by the distribution of their several worships, the de-
votees of Siva being more numerous in the south and those of Vishnu in the north.
Thus in the northern districts of the Madras presidency the worshippers of Vishnu
preponderate by a number varying from ten to one to four to one, while in the
central districts of the presidency the number of adherents of either faith is
almost equal ; in the south the worshippers of Siva surpass those of Vishnu by a
number varying from four to one to sixty-seven to one. In the loftier conceptions
of Siva Brahman thought becomes more prominent : from death springs up fresh
life, from destruction the new and more beautiful is restored. Thus the " de-
stroyer " becomes a benefactor, Sada" Siva, Sankara, Sambhu ; he personifies the
reproductive forces of nature, and as such is worshipped under the name MahS,-
deva, the great god, Isvara, the chief lord. No image is of more frequent occur-
rence in India than his symbol, the Lingam (phallus). Yet more definitely
Brahman is^the idea of the power of the sacrifice and of asceticism, and in this
connection Siva appears in the form of the " Great Penitent " Mahayogin.
Personification has not extended so far among the Hindu deities as it did
among those of Greece and Rome, consequently the Hindu Pantheon is not com-
posed of one great family of grandparents, fathers, mothers, and children. Brahman
and Vishnu had no son, and only two sons exist loosely connected with Siva,
known as Subrahmanya or Skanda, the god of war, and Ganesa, the god of cun-
ning and success, who is invoked upon every necessity of daily life, and whose
deformed, stumpy figure with the elephant's head is everywhere to be found.
Consorts are assigned to all the more important deities ; yet the conception of
wifehood has in this case been overshadowed by the personal attributes of the
deity (s"akti = might or power). According to Brahman philosophy, as soon as a
412 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_chapterir
supreme being becomes personal, his attributes coalesce into male and female divi-
sions, the latter of which, contrary to our conceptions, is the more operative of the
two. In the case of the less active gods, Brahman and Vishnu, this opposition is
by no means so prominent : the consort of Brahman, Sarasvati, is the goddess of
learning and knowledge ; while Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, is the goddess of the
.supreme good and beauty. However, in the worship of Siva the female side
of his existence plays a more important part, owing to the fact that the god him-
,self occupies a position of greater activity and has absorbed a larger proportion
of Dravidian deities who were essentially feminine. Each of the chief forms under
which 6iva appears have been intensified by the addition of a wife ; thus to the
mountain god Kirata the wife Parvati has been given, to Mahftkftla the blood-
thirsty Kali, to Bhava the wife Bhavini, to Mahadeva the wife Mahadevi, and to
the penitent Mahayogin the wife Yogini.
To the narrow circle of the supreme gods is added a number of superior beings,
partly drawn from prehistoric legend, such, for instance, as the sacred singers of
the Vedas the Rishis, the Pfindu brothers of the Bharata battles, and others drawn
from the numerous band of lower deities worshipped by individual tribes. The
Hindu heaven is spacious enough to contain any deity of the smallest importance
or mystery, and includes stones and mountains, rivers and tanks, weeds and trees,
useful and dangerous animals, the most different atmospherical phenomena, spirits
of the deceased, individual demons, etc.
The wide differences, in fact the oppositions, which characterise the manifesta-
tions of the divine element are reflected in the worship ; the lowest fetish worship
exists side by side with the veneration of the purer and higher powers of heaven.
Hinduism is particularly distinguished from all monotheistic religions by the fact
that its votaries do not constitute a church, or indeed possess a universally accepted
creed. A Hindu may worship Vishnu or Siva in one or other of their different
forms, as also G-anesa, or one of the many Saktis, and his choice entirely depends on
the forms of prayer and incantation (Mantra) which he has received from his
spiritual tutor and adviser, the Guru. These formulae vary in the case of individual
gods, and any god can be transformed into the patron deity of the Hindu who bears
upon his forehead the sign (Nama) of this special god.1 Under these circum-
stances common worship is impossible. Worship, like faith, is purely personal, and
is composed of formulae and spells of magic power, of purificatory rites and sacri-
fices which the worshipper offers to the gods or induces his priest to offer for him.
Worship of this kind, therefore, demands no great space or building where the con-
gregation may meet together before their god ; the sanctuary proper is never more
than a small shrine or an unimportant chapel with the symbol or image of the god.
The temples, which have increased to enormous size, especially in Southern India,
owe their dimensions to the addition of subordinate rooms such as pilgrim halls,
side galleries (see the plate, " Colonnade 2 in the Interior of the Hindu Temple on
the Island of Rameswaram "), tanks surrounded by steps, etc.
Divine worship is carried on under three main different forms. Vishnu of all
the supreme gods is most like man in shape. Consequently his statue is tended
1 In the case of Siva this sign usually consists of three horizontal strokes of white, Vishnu heing desig-
iiatcd by a design like a tuning-fork. See also the upper half of the plate, "Early Indian Art and
Architecture," p. 418.
2 Seven hundred feet long ; erected in the eleventh to twelfth century, according to Fergusson.
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE OVERLEAF
The island of Eameswaram (Ramisseram), a low sandy piece of land, lies in the Gulf of
Manar between India and Ceylon : in the northern part of it stands one of the most splendid
monuments of Dravidian architecture — the immense Hindu temple with its lofty towers, the
interior of which is traversed by gloomy pillared corridors. For centuries the shrine has been
visited throughout the year by thousands of pilgrims, and the rich oiferings made by these
provide a livelihood for the inhabitants of the island, who are chiefly Brahmans.
/•H HISTORY OF THE WORLD 413
like a human being by priests specially appointed for the purpose. The worship of
his image may be compared to the playing of a small child with its doll, and the
offerings made to him are those things which delight the Hindu heart, — rice, coraco,,
pastry, and flowers or decorations of pearls and precious stones. Siva, on the other
hand, the lofty and often terrible god, dwells at heights unattainable by humanity.
It is exceptional for his temple to contain a statue. However, worship is rendered
everywhere to his symbol, the Lingam, which is bathed in holy water, smeared
with butter or covered with flowers. The worship of the third group of gods
Dravidian in origin necessitates a bloody sacrifice. Goats are slaughtered before
the altars of Kali and DurgS, and the images and temple floor sprinkled with
the blood of the animal ; poorer people offer a cock to these, or to other lower
divinities. The human sacrifices prevalent at an earlier period are now practically
abolished> though survivals in a milder form occur even at the present day.
To these forms of daily worship, prayer and sacrifice, must be added the
religious festivals which occur upon the days dedicated to numerous individual
gods. Scarce a people or a religion can be found which celebrates so many pious
festivals as the Hindus. Specially meritorious is a pilgrimage carried out under
circumstances of unusual difficulty to the source of some holy stream (Ganges or
Narbada) or to one of the great sanctuaries of Siva or Vishnu.
(3) Tlie Hindu Conception of Caste. — As Brahmanism had already sowed the
seed which was to develop into Hinduism and its religion, so upon the social side
the Brahman caste regulations provided a practical basis for organisation. The
caste system has been promoted by many influences and checked by many others.
Even Buddhism showed a tendency to equalise and level the sharp barriers exist-
ing between the castes. When at a later period Mohammedanism was introduced,,
its adherents declined to recognise caste, and many Hindu sects in imitation laid
down the social equality of all men as a fundamental principle.
On the other side influences existed which furthered the persistence and in-
crease of the castes. During antiquity the incorporation of members of foreign
races must have produced subdivisions within the several castes; newcomers-
would be regarded with some contempt by the older members, and differences of
this nature grew in course of time to absolute division. Within the warrior caste
this process was constantly repeated; and in the same way deep schisms often
arose within the Brahman caste, especially in the south. It was a common
occurrence for a caste or some part of it to claim and acquire a higher position by
means of falsified genealogies or other evidence, though without obtaining absolute
recognition. Local separation of the members of one and the same caste naturally
results in an increase of caste. The divided parts mistrust one another, especially
on the point of purity of descent, and ultimately the sense of their common unity
is lost, and that which had been one caste becomes two. Caste divisions of this
nature are especially common among nomadic shepherd tribes or gipsy tribes
(of. on the subject, Vol. V), among trading and agricultural castes, which are driven
from time to time by outbreaks of famine to change their dwelling-place and to
divide their forces ; divisions may also be brought about by war and the shifting
of political boundaries. A man who has arrived at high prosperity often attempts,
and with success, to break away from his caste brothers and to assume the name
and the special customs of a higher caste. Eeligious divisions are also a frequent
414 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
cause of caste disruption. One of the commonest causes of caste increase is change
of profession, which often results in a change of circumstances or social conditions.
Under European supremacy it is a phenomenon of daily occurrence that the Hindu
who enters the service of a white man thinks himself better than his former caste
brothers, and new castes of coachmen, water-bringers, grass-cutters are constantly
arising in this way. At the present time separation of profession is the main
characteristic of the caste system, profession being invariably hereditary. This
custom tends to preserve the purity of blood ; no one who belongs to one caste may
marry with the member of another caste. Among the higher castes mere contact
defiles, or the breath of a low-born man even at a considerable distance. Eating
with a member of another caste is absolutely forbidden. Stern precepts thus
regulate individual behaviour. Castes have their own presidents and inspectors,
appoint pecuniary fines or expulsion as punishment for grievous offences, and also
watch over the welfare of the whole (by maintaining the rate of wages, the hours
of labour, organising strikes upon occasion, etc.) and also of the individual (by
supporting the poor and maintaining widows and orphans, etc.).
(4) The Position of the Woman. — Almost as great an obstacle to national
development as caste influence has been the low position held by the woman.
Among the Aryans and also among the lower native tribes the woman was
respected and honoured, and during the epic period was the central point of inter-
est in the brilliant tournaments of the Kshatriya and the equal companion of man
for the poets of the succeeding age ; whereas now she is but a miserable creature,
an oppressed and hard-worked slave. Here, too, Brahman influence is to be traced
in the repression of the woman. The Brahmans considered that the safest means
of securing racial purity, the fundamental precept of their social organisation, was
to limit the freedom of the woman by the closest possible regulations. The only
task left to her was to present her husband with descendants of pure blood, and to
this task everything that may raise the esteem in which woman is held was ruth-
lessly sacrificed. Contempt and stern compulsion accompany her from birth to
death. Should a son be born to a Hindu the festival conch-shell is blown, and the
friends bring congratulations and cheerful offerings ; but when the child is a girl,
the father looks upon the ground in embarrassment, while his friends offer him
condolences instead of congratulations. Special festivals are arranged only in
honour of boys and never of girls. After the birth of a son the mother remains
unclean for three weeks, but for four weeks after the birth of a daughter. The
boy is instructed by his spiritual tutor in accordance with his father's position ;
the girl receives no instruction at all. Whatever she learns she learns from her
mother, who knows nothing more than a few texts and prayers for the possession
of a faithful husband, and a few curses against polygamy and infidelity.
At the age of seven to nine years old the girl is married to a boy of from twelve
to fourteen years of age, or even to an old widower, without any attempt being
made to consult her inclination ; often she meets her husband at the ceremony for
the first time. After the ceremony is concluded she remains for the moment in
her parents' house, to be transferred to her husband upon the first signs of puberty.
Mothers of thirteen and fourteen years of age are by no means exceptional in India.
How unfavourable an influence must be exercised by early marriages of this kind
upon the physical and intellectual welfare of the nation is sufficiently obvious.
Indi
•«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 415
Upon her marriage a girl begins a miserable life of slavery within the prison of
the woman's apartments ; she must cover her face before every male member of
the family, she may not speak to her husband for days together, she may not call
him by name or eat with him ; her existence is passed in deadly monotony. Before
the period of the English supremacy the woman's ideal was to be cremated with
her dead husband. These suttees are now a thing of the past, but the lot of the
widow is almost worse than death by fire. The death of her husband is ascribed
to her ill deeds committed in a former state of existence, and her remaining days
are weighed down by hatred, severe penance, mortification, and the burden of the
heaviest tasks.
Such is the lot of woman in those strata of society which profess to fulfil the
ideal of Hindu existence. In reality these severities are often tempered by mild-
ness and affection. Among the poorer Hindus of the lower castes the wife is
obliged to share the task of procuring sustenance for the family, and thus rises to
be the equal of the man, and gains self-respect by the consciousness of being of
some use in the world, though at the same time even in this class of society the
wife is considered an inferior being.
(5) The Pursuit of Science and Art by the Bralimans. — In the subordination
of civil society as arranged by themselves the Brahmans retained learning and
science as their prerogative, and were themselves under the special protection of the
goddess of learning, Sarasvati, the chief wife of Brahma".
The Bralimans have left their special mark upon the whole religious, scientific,
and artistic literature of India by the creation of a learned language, Sanscrit.
The earliest hymns of the Vedas, dating perhaps from the third millennium B. c.,
are written in an ancient but highly developed language ; from this the popular
tongue gradually diverged as in course of time it was broken into different dialects.
The priests considered it of high importance that the language in which they spoke
to the gods should be higher and more perfect than the vulgar tongue. As they
gradually rose above the common people to power and influence they transformed
the language of religious thought and worship by a strictly logical and scientific
procedure into the " Sarhskrita," the " perfect language," as distinguished from the
vulgar tongue or " original " language, the " Prakrita ; " they can pride themselves
upon including in their number the greatest grammarian of all time, Pfinini
(apparently about the middle of the fourth century B. c.). The contrast between
the esoteric lore of the Brahmans and the more popular teaching of Buddha is
expressed in the fact that Buddha and his disciples preached to the people in their
own tongue in every country which they visited. It was not until Buddhaghosha
(410-430) had transcribed into the Pitakas (sacred books ; see p. 402), in the
language of Magadha, the commentaries (Atthakatha) of the great Buddhist
Mahinda that this language, the Pali, became the sacred tongue of southern
Buddhism. Brahman influence is also apparent in the formation of the southern
branch in so far as this latter chose Sanscrit and not Pali for purposes of religious
writing.
The most important part of Brahman literature is concerned with religious
questions. The Vedas are the foundation of all later religious and philosophical
developments. Of the four collections of the Vedas, the Eig Veda belongs to a
remote period of antiquity, parts of it undoubtedly dating from the third millennium
416 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
B. c., while two later collections, the Sama and Yajur Vedas, belong to the period
when the ritual had been formulated. The Vedas are collections of hymns and
texts which the priest had to repeat during the performance of sacrifice. There
were three orders of priests, and each of the three collections which we have men-
tioned was for the use of a particular order. To the Hohis, or highest of the three
orders, belonged the Kig Veda, which they were required to recite in a loud voice.
Next to them came the Udgahi priests ; they used the Sama Vedas, which they sang
in chorus. The Yajur Vedas were for the use of the Adhwaryu priests, who were
only allowed to mutter in a low voice. The fourth Veda, the Athar, contains
magical formulae against sickness and the attacks of enemies, together with extracts
from the Rig Veda. The Brahmanas also belong to pre-Buddhist times ; these are
prose compositions containing a substratum of historical truth interwoven with
legendary narratives, and consist primarily of a description of the ritual employed
in the great sacrifices as performed by the different priests. The Upauishads are
works of a different character, and contain the results of Brahman philosophical
speculation, together with religious and philosophical teaching upon the nature of
the world and the world soul from a monotheistic point of view. They are marked
by a profundity of speculation and a richness of thought which are evidence of the
serious prosecution of the truth for its own sake. Wholly different are the Tantras,
which belong to a much later period ; these are a collection of mystical religious
precepts, prayers, and magic formulae for the service of Siva in his more esoteric
character and female personification (Durga). Though these writings were com-
posed at a later date than those previously mentioned, they are none the less con-
siderably older than the extant version of the eighteen Puranas, with their eighteen
appendices, amounting in all to about four hundred thousand double lines, and
dealing with the legends of Vishnu. These were also included by the Brahman s
among the " Scriptures of Antiquity," though their age cannot certainly be deter-
mined. In their present form they are a later edition, but their fundamental
elements exist in part in the Mahabharata.
Together with religious writings the Sanscrit literature includes all other
departments of Brahman thought. The historical is their weakest side. In this
respect the Brahmans are in strong contrast to the Mohammedans, who were ever
ready to write the histories of their age and their rulers, and also to the Buddhists,
in whose chronicles all important events affecting the monasteries were transmitted
to later generations. These chronicles have entirely disappeared in the general
ruin of Buddhist monasteries in India; in Kashmir alone, where Buddhism
maintained its ground to a late date, the historical sense has not entirely vanished
with the monasteries, and the book of the kings there written, the Rftjataranginf,
carries on the history of this district into the post-Buddhist period. In Ceylon,
where Buddhism remains the dominant religion, the chronicles have been continued
from the earliest period to the dissolution of the Singhalese kingdom and the
English occupation.
Brahman thought was unequal to the task of scientific investigation into natural
causes; in this department inquiry was checked by the conception of a divine
element which penetrated the vegetable and animal worlds, and was even immanent
in the stone. At the same time the duty of sacrifice gave them a certain know-
ledge of the parts of the body and their surgical treatment ; indeed, this was a good
school for empirical surgery, in which native practitioners acquired a high degree
/*«.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 417
of skill. Even such difficult operations as those for cataract, stone, rhinoplastic
(that is, the reconstruction of the nose), removal of the foetus, etc., were successfully
and skilfully performed, and the medical treatises of the Brahmans make mention
of no less than one hundred and twenty-seven different surgical instruments. At
a later date, when the Arabs became acquainted with Indian surgery they gave full
recognition to their superior knowledge. The treatment of internal disease rested
upon purely empirical methods ; a large collection of specific remedies existed, and
the chemists employed in the preparation of medicines had acquired scientific
knowledge of a number of important chemical bodies.
Astronomy was a science in closest connection with the priestly calling ; indeed
the primeval religion of the Aryans had consisted in prayers to those powers which
were manifested in heavenly phenomena, in the movements of the sun, the planets,
and the fixed stars. Thus even in the earlier Vedas the solar year is calculated
with a high degree of accuracy, the year consisting of twelve months of thirty days,
an intercalary month being added to every fifth year. Religious sacrifices and
festivals were also performed on dates previously fixed by means of astronomical
calculation. Still, in the period of Alexander the Great astronomy as an exact
science was at a comparatively low level, and much help was given by foreigners
who had made further advances in these studies. However, toward the middle
of the first century A. D. the science made a great advance, though it relapsed
during the period of the formation of the great Mohammedan States. Only by
individual princes (for example, those of Jaipur) has astronomy been studied in
modern times with any degree of interest. Side by side with this science stands
that of mathematics, for which the Brahmans showed high capacity. They de-
veloped independently the decimal system of notation, and the Arabs undoubtedly
learnt very much from the mathematical studies of the Brahmans. The study of
algebra reached its highest point in the person of Aryabhata (born 476 A. D.).
Together with the Dharmasutra, of early date and composed in short precepts,
and the legal code of Manu written in. verse (p. 374), other similar works, such as
the Dharmas'astra of Yajnavalkya and of Parslsara, also enjoyed a high reputation;
these works treated of morality in social life, and also of judicial administration
in a narrower sense. At a later period there arose in the different parts of India
five legal schools which developed juridical systems, varying respectively as the
characteristics of the population.
In art the Brahmans were the leaders of the people. Music and poetry were an
integral part of divine worship, which was to be carried on with artistic words and
solemn song ; the same remarks apply to the architectural arts, for architecture
and the decorative arts of painting and sculpture received their highest impulse
from religion.
The musical scale of seven intervals is of primeval antiquity in India, and
though their modern music is cacophonous to us, this fact is due to the introduction
of numerous intervals inappreciable to our ears. The sacred hymns of the Indians
are admirable compositions (cf. p. 368) ; of no less importance are the epic poems
composed under Brahman influence, the Mahabharata and Ramayana (p. 369).
Epic materials have also been incorporated with the Bralimanas (p. 416). The
development of the fable with characters from the animal world by the Indians
is well known. One of the earliest collections of this nature, the Panchatantra,
probably goes back to the second century B. c., and is at any rate earlier than the
VOL. 11 — 27
418 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
sixth century B. c., when it was translated into Persian; in another form this
collection enjoys greater popularity as the Hitopadela. The Indian fable has made
its way over the whole world, and ^Esop's fables, together with the story of Eeynard
the Fox, are but an echo of Indian poetry.
Of dramatic works the Indians have about sixty pieces of ancient date ; almost
all of these are rather comedies with happy denouements, than tragedies ending in
gloom. They are no longer characterised by the unrestrained power and the
youthful heroic joy of the first Aryan period ; the popular character had undergone
a change under Brahman influence, and humanity as represented in these dramas
had grown effeminate. Character is of less importance than sentiment, which
latter shows a remarkable degree of tenderness and introspection, while the whole
is marked by a feeling for external nature which is unrecognisable in the modern
Hindu. Among the dramatic poets of India the most famous is Kalidasa ; a verse
from his works is quoted on an inscription as early as 472 A. D. The culmination
of Indian drama is seen in " Sakuntala," " WikramorwaSi " (Vikrama and Urva6i),
and also " Malavikagnimitra " (Malavika and Agnimitra). Writers of lesser im-
portance are King Sri Harsha in the seventh century A. D. (" Ratna" vali," " Priya-
darSika"," and the Buddhist drama " Nagananda "), Bhatta Bhavabhuti at the outset
of the eighth century (dramas; " MalatimMhava " [Malati and Madhawa],
" MaMwiratsharita " and " Uttararamatsharitra " [fate of the great hero and further
fortune of Rama]); King Sfidraka with " Mritshtshhakatika' " (Vasantasena") was
probably of much earlier date; we may mention Vi&akhadatta (perhaps not till
1100) with " MudrSrakshasa " (the minister's seal). As an epic (" Raghuvaiis'a "
and " Kuinitrasambhava ") and lyric poet (" Meghaduta," the cloud boat), Kalidasa
is again high above rival composers in these genres.
The plastic arts no less than the poetical receive their first impulse from
religion, so that in this department also the Brahmans appear as patrons and
supporters. Painting (see the upper half of the plate, "Early Indian Art
and Architecture ") and sculpture hardly rose above the level of decorative art ;
the breath of pure beauty observable in the representations of Buddha is due to
Greek influence (see the stone figure reproduced on the right beneath the plate,
"Early Indian Sculpture," p. 390). Under the more artistic of the Mohammedan
princes painters produced works of beauty though of small size in portraiture. In
other respects, however, both arts were subordinated to architecture, and are
characterised by the fantastical conjunction of human and animal forms, the
multiplication of individual members of the body, by exaggeration of movement,
a total lack of proportion, the desire to fill up space, and an ignorance of the laws
of perspective.
Architecture produced more successful results and became monumental after
stone had been introduced as a material by foreign influence (Greek). For more
than one thousand years this art was confined to the erection of religious build-
ings ; palaces of any size and splendour do not appear until the rise of the Moham-
medan kingdoms. Hinduism in religion and worship has left its stamp upon
architectural style ; there being no congregations, no temples were required of any
great size, and the sanctuary proper is but a narrow space to contain the statue or
the symbol of the god. Round about the sanctuary, for the convenience of the pil-
grims who arrived to make their offerings and to perform their pious vows, were
erected long corridors, great pillared halls (see the plate " A Colonnade on Earned-
Racial types : Frescoes of the second century B. c. From the cave X at Ajanta (after James Burgess).
(The figures bear the Natna of the Brahman divinities upon their foreheads. The type of face is rather
Aryan than Dravidian ; the ornaments and umbrella are not, as Fergusson and Burgess suppose,
signs of low caste.)
The " Kuilasa" at Ellora. (After Gustave Le Bon.)
EARLY INDIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 419
varam," p. 412) large tanks approached by flights of steps for ablution, etc. In
this way temples which enjoyed a high reputation and were visited by tens of thou-
sands of pilgrims during the year often grew to enormous size. Especially is this
true of the Dravidian temples which are distinguished by their size and massive-
ness and by their towered gates with richly adorned pyramidal roofs rising in ter-
races. The buildings of the Chalukya kingdom (p. 408) are characterised by
delicacy of decoration and those of the Jains by an oppressive wealth of orna-
ment. To the earlier Buddhist period belong the huge temples, hewn out
of the natural rock and left open, of Karli, Adjanta", Ellora", etc. (see the lower
half of the plate, p. 418). Noticeable in Buddhist architecture *are the numerous
buildings containing relics (stftpas) which are of enormous size, especially in
Ceylon (see the plate " Early Buddhist Temple Foundations," p. 501). The Moham-
medan period erected magnificent mosques and palaces (Delhi Agra, etc.). Horse-
shoe curves and the cupola are here the distinguishing features, while the decoration
is marked by the taste and wealth of Arab art under the influence of Persian
contact.
B. THE MOHAMMEDAN PERIOD OF INDIA (1001-1740)
(a) The Religious Struggle between Islam and Hinduism (1001-1526). — His-
torians are accustomed to detail the events of the Mohammedan period of India
according to the succession of dynasties. This long period, however, upon a more
careful examination of its content, falls into two main divisions which end and begin
respectively with the year 1526. The first of these periods is characterised by con-
tinual ferment and confusion. Hindus and Mohammedans are in a state of uninter-
rupted and fierce struggle, kingdoms are founded and overthrown, dynasties rise and
fall. During the second period, however, a greater stability prevails ; the opposition
between the two peoples gradually disappears, and for more than three hundred years
the kingdom is ruled by seventeen monarchs of one and the same family, that of
Timur, in unbroken succession.
During the first period the supremacy passed through the hands of six " dynas-
ties : " the House of Ghazni, 1001 to 1186, that of Ghor, 1186 to 1206, the Mameluke
rulers, 1206 to 1290, the House of Khilji, 1290 to 1321, the House of Tughlak, 1321
to 1412, the Seiads, 1416 to 1451, and the dynasty of Behlul L6dhi, 1451 to 1526.
The first of these " dynasties " was confined to the Punjab, while that of the
Ghors extended the Mohammedan supremacy over the whole lowland district of
Northern India, the Mamelukes advanced to the Vindhya Mountains, and the
second of the Khilji rulers governed the whole of India almost to the southern
point. The Mohammedan power in India then reached its first period of greatest
prosperity. Then began the downfall ; the Tughlak rulers lost the Deccan and
Bengal, and under the two last dynasties the frontiers of the kingdom often ex-
tended but a few miles beyond the walls of the Capital of Delhi.
This period of five hundred years was a time of severe oppression for the Hin-
dus, a time of cruel murder and bitter struggle. As the lightning flash announces
the on-coming storm, so also a warning movement preceded that convulsion which
burst upon the unhappy land and the impulse to which was given by India herself.
In the year 979 A. D. Jaipal, the Prince of Lahore in the Punjab, considered that
the growing power of his western neighbour, NSsir ed-din Sabuktegtn, lord of Ghazni
(Ghazna ; 976-997) threatened danger to himself, and sought to reduce this prince
420 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
by means of a crusade to Afghanistan ; this effort resulted in a friendly settlement.
When, however, Jaipal, supported by the princes of Delhi, Ajmir, and Kanauj, re-
sumed the offensive in 988 he was utterly defeated at Lamgd,n. Turko-Afghan
hordes marched through his country murdering and plundering ; Sabuktegin estab-
lished himself at the confluence of the Cabul and the Indus, and thus got posses-
sion of the obvious base for an invasion of India. He was succeeded by his son
Ismail ; he, however, was dethroned in 998 by his brother Mahmud Yamin ed
Dowlah and imprisoned in a fortress.
(a) The House of Ghazni. — Mahmud (998-1030) also known as Bhut Shikan
(" The Iconoclast ") was the most important ruler of the Ghazni dynasty. From
his Tartar father he had inherited tenacity and military prowess, while his mother,
a Persian woman, had given him a feeling for higher civilization. He was a clever,
energetic, and enterprising man, and also a zealous patron of science and art (cf.
Vol. Ill, p. 344) ; magnificent mosques and palaces arose within his capital, and the
greatest scholars of the time were the adornment of his brilliant court (the chron-
ologist el-Ber&ni and the universal historian Abu All el-Hussein, known as ibn-
Sina or Avicenna) and poets (Firdusi, 1020-1032 ). He founded and richly endowed
a university in Ghazni ; education was also supported by a museum of natural
history. Splendid foundations were created by him to provide for men of high
intellectual gifts. Although military operations almost invariably kept him away
from his country, no internal disturbance took place during the thirty-three years
of his reign. He had no comprehensive political insight ; his Indian operations
were by no means undertaken with the object of conquering that magnificent
country and furthering the development of its material resources, but were mere
raids and forays for the purpose of capturing gold, jewels, and slaves. The Moham-
medan world is inclined to consider Mahmud of Ghazni one of the greatest ru.fers
of all time, and his co-religionists and contemporaries consider his military achieve-
ments as unequalled by those of any ruler ; but this belief was founded not only
upon his military reputation, but also upon his religious fanaticism which over-
threw the idols of hostile peoples and destroyed the temples of the unbelievers. In
this respect also they overestimated their hero and his intentions ; the devasta-
tion of the Indian temples was undertaken by Mahmud chiefly with the object of
plundering the enormous treasures which had been gathered there in the course of
centuries.
The first years of the new ruler were occupied by struggles with his smaller
neighbours. Then he turned his face to India. In the year 1001 Jaipftl was
defeated for the second time and ended his life upon the funeral pyre, the Western
Punjab with Lahore falling into the hands of the conqueror. This, Mahmud's first
Indian campaign, was succeeded by sixteen furious raids upon Kashmir (1013),
Multan (1006), the Ganges, and even the southern point of the peninsula of Gujerat;
especially rich was the booty gained by the plunder of the temples of Nagar-
cot, Tanesar (ThangSwara, 1014), SomnSt (Pattana Somanatha, 1016-1017), and
Mattra (MathurS,, 1018), while the boundaries of the Ghazni kingdom extended
no further than the Western Punjab. Its extension upon the west and north was
far greater, for Mahmud found time in the intervals of these campaigns to conquer
the country of Ghdr (West Afghanistan), Transoxania, and Persia.
When Mahmud died in 1030 at the age of sixty-three he left a powerful king-
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 421
dom behind him (see the map, p. 430). His fourteen successors, however, were
unable to preserve it unimpaired, and the quarrels of pretenders to the throne,
internal revolts, and the attacks of enemies upon the west and north (Seljuks),
resulted in eventual disruption. In 1150 Ghazni fell into the hands of the princes
of Ghor ; its numerous and magnificent buildings were utterly devastated and only
the tombs of Mahmud and of two other princes remained intact. The last two
members of the Ghazna house, Mo'izz ed-dowlet Khusrou Shah, 1152-1160, and
Khusrou Malik, 1160-1186, continued a doubtful existence in Lahore until this
last remnant of the once powerful Ghazni kingdom was swept away by the princes
of Ghor.
(/3) The House of Ghdr, — Since the date of its subjugation by Mahmud
(1010), Western Afghanistan had played a subordinate part ; but in 1163, when
Ghiyas (Ghaya"th) ed-din Mohammed ibn-SSm ascended the throne, the power of
Gh6r rapidly increased. The new ruler appointed his brother, Mo'izz ed-din Gh6ri,
as co-regent, an unusual proceeding in a Mohammedan State, and upon the death of
Ghiyas (December 10, 1203), the regent became sole ruler.
In 1186 the Ghazni monarch, Khusrou Malik, was attacked, conquered, and
finally imprisoned, being ultimately murdered with his sons in 1192. With their
death, the dynasty of the Ghazni princes became extinct, and the Western Punjab,
with its capital of Lahore, was added to the kingdom of Mo'izz ed-din. The acqui-
sition of these territories advanced the boundaries of Gh6r to the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the Kajput States ; in particular, the kingdom reached the frontiers of
Ajmir, which was governed by Pithora Eay (Prithvira'ja II). This State became
the object of the next operations of Mo'izz ed-din. A battle was fought at Thanes-
vara within the narrow space between the Desert and the Mountains and between
the streams of the Sarasvati and the Jumna Tarain, in which the Afghan cavalry
was utterly defeated by the Indian warrior castes (1191). In the next year,
however, Mo'izz ed-din conquered Ajmir and the Hindu States attached to that
kingdom. Pithora Ea"y was captured in flight and slain. Shortly afterward Ajmir
fell into the conqueror's hands, who displayed even greater cruelty than Mahmud
of Ghazni and massacred the inhabitants or sold them into slavery.
He then advanced upon Delhi (more properly Dehli, pronounced Dichli). This
town after its capture by his field marshal Kutb (Kotub or Kutub) ed-din in
1193, remained henceforward the chief centre of the Mohammedan power in Hin-
dustan. In 1194 Mo'izz ed-din defeated the prince Jei Chendra, of Benares and
Kauauj, thus extending his frontiers to the neighbourhood of Behar. In the
following years he was occupied with his brother in Merv, Kharizm, and Herat,
until the death of the latter left him the sole ruler of the great kingdom. In
the mean time, Kutb ed-din and the second in command, the Khilji chieftain,
Mohammed ibn-Bachtyar, had subdued Behar (1194) and Upper Bengal (1195),
Gwalior (1196), Gujerat and Oudh. The dynasty of Ghor then attained the zenith
of its power. A defeat suffered by Mo'izz ed-din in the course of an undertaking
against Kharizm in 1204 broke up the western part of the empire as far as the
Punjab. The Sultan, indeed, succeeded in suppressing the revolts of his governors
in those provinces ; but he himself fell a victim on the Indus in 1206 to the dagger
of an Ishmaelite (assassin), or a man of the wild mountain tribe of the Ghakkas.
422 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
(7) The Mameluke Rulers {"the Slave or First Tartar Dynasty"}. — Mo'izz
ed-din Ghori left no male descendants, and had made no arrangements for the suc-
cession, the immediate consequence being great disorder. One of his nephews,
Ghiyas ed-din II Mahmud, was, indeed, set up as heir to the throne, but four of
his governors in the chief provinces made themselves practically independent. In
India the experienced general and governor, Kutb ed-din Eibek (Ibak), immediately
grasped the reins of government (26th of June), while civil war continued for nine
years (1206-1215) in the other provinces of the empire, until their incorporation
with Kharizm. When Kutb declared himself independent, Hindustan,1 which had
hitherto merely been a province of the kingdoms of Ghazni and Ghor, became inde-
pendent also. The new ruler had originally been a Turkish slave of Mo'izz ed-din.
From a subordinate position he had gradually risen to become commander-in-chief
and governor, a career that was typical of the rise of many rulers in succeeding
times. Though many of these ascended the throne by hereditary right, yet the
whole of this line of rulers has received the common name of the " Slave Dynasty "
(1206-1290).
Kutb had enjoyed his power for only four years, when an accident at polo
caused his death in Lahore in 1210. His character has been thus well described
by a Mohammedan historian : " The kingdom was full of the honourable and
cleansed from the rebellious ; his benevolence was as unceasing as his bloodshed."
His religious zeal is evidenced at the present day by the splendid mosques and the
proud minaret in old Delhi, which still bears his name (Kutub Minar). His son,
Aram Shah, was a weak-minded prince, and in the very year of his accession
(1210) was defeated and apparently murdered by the revolted Shams ed-din
Altamsh (or Altmysh, also lltamish ; properly Altytmysh). This latter personality
had also been a Turkish slave, had found favour with Kutb, who had given him
his daughter, Malikah Jihan, in marriage, and entrusted him with the governorship
of Budaun. Altamsh did not immediately get the whole country into his power ;
a brother-in-law of Kutb had made himself independent in Sinclh, Multan, Bhakor
and Sivistan. The Punjab also revolted from him, and in Behar and Bengal in
1219 the governor, Hasan ed-din, of the family of the Khilji, laid claim to the ter-
ritory. Before Altamsh was able to turn upon him, the invading armies of Genghis
Khan burst upon Western Hindustan. This conqueror had utterly devastated the
kingdom of Kharizm, and when the fugitive monarch, Jelal ed-din Mankburni
(Mingburni), sought shelter in the Punjab, he was pursued by Genghis Khan, who
devastated the provinces of Multan, Lahore, Peshawar and Malikpur (1221-1222 ;
cf. p. 172). The fugitive prince of Kharizm had begged Altamsh for assistance ;
the latter, however, was careful not to irritate the Mongol bands, and remained in-
active in Delhi, until at length the thunder clouds rolled away as rapidly as they
had come. Thereupon Altamsh subjugated Bengal and Behar in 1225. In 1228
he got the Punjab and Sindh into his power, and also subdued the kingdom of
Malva in the south after a long struggle (1226-1232; the destruction of the
temples of Bhilsa, Ujain and Gwalior). Those Hindu States which had not
appeared against him in open hostility were mildly treated and made dependent
upon the kingdom under certain conditions. On the death of Altamsh (28th of
1 Hindostan (Hindustan) includes in its narrower sense the district watered by the Ganges and Jumna,
in its wider sense the whole of Mohammedan India.
Lidi
«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 423
April, 1236), his kingdom extended from the Indus to the Brahmaputra, and from
the Himalaya to the Vindhya Mountains. His government was well organised, a
spirit of vigorous intellectualism prevailed in his court, and the ruins of Ka Pithira
(old Delhi) are evidence not only of the wealth but also of the artistic taste of this
highly gifted monarch.
A time of disturbance followed. In the next eleven years no less than five
descendants of Altamsh sat upon the throne of Delhi. All the Mameluke princes
were threatened by danger on three sides ; from the Hindus, who were the more
reluctant to submit to a foreign yoke in proportion to the pressure laid upon them
by the fanatical Mohammedans, from the generals and governors who were attracted
by the success which had attended the rising of the first Mameluke rulers, and from
the Mongols, whose devastating campaigns were continually and rapidly repeated
after the first advance of Gengis Khan. The immediate successor of Altamsh was
his second son, Feroz Shah Kukn ed-din, whose government (1236) came to an end
after seven months in a palace revolution. His place was taken by his sister,
Eaziyah (Eezia, Kasi'a) Begum, a woman admirably fitted for supreme power, and
the only Mohammedan queen who reigned upon the throne of Hindostan (1236-
1239). Her powerful and masculine intellect, her strength and sense of justice,
her spirit and courage, enabled her to fulfil the heavy responsibilities of her position ;
nor did she shrink from riding into battle upon her war elephant in male clothing.
However, as says the historian, Mohammed Kasim Hindushah Firishtah (about
1600), her only fault was that she was a woman. Her love for an Abyssinian
slave made her unpopular among the people, and a series of revolts began, which
ended in her downfall. The country was further disturbed both by internal dis-
sensions and by Mongol invasions during the short reigns of the two following
rulers (Bahram Shah, 21st of April, 1240, and Mas'ud, 1241-1246). Protection
from these dangers was not forthcoming until the reign of the serious and upright
Nasir-ed-din Mahmud Shah (1246-1266), the sixth son of Altamsh, who left almost
the entire business of government to his brother-in-law and father-in-law, the Grand
Vizier Ghiyas ed-din Balban. The Mongols were defeated in 1247. They had in
the mean while overthrown the Abbassid kingdom of Bagdad (see p. 176). Hulagu
confined his power to Persia, and expressed his friendly intentions by sending an
embassy to the court of Delhi. The spirit of those times and the character of the
all-powerful grand vizier can be inferred from the fact that on the entrance of
that embassy the city gate of Delhi was decorated with the corpses of Hindu
rebels. Of these there was indeed no lack. Hardly had a revolt been suppressed
in one quarter than new disturbances broke out elsewhere, and it became necessary
to crush the Hindus with measures of the sternest repression in the Duab, in
Bandelkand, in Mewar, Malwa, Utsh, Karrak, and Manikpur successively.
On the 18th of February, 1266, Mahmud died, and was succeeded by the grand
vizier Ghiyas ed-din Balban, who had previously been the virtual ruler of the
empire. He, too, had begun his career as a Turkoman slave. He inflicted severe
punishment upon the bands of rebels in the northeast and upon the Hindus of
Mewat, Behar, and Bengal, and is said to have slaughtered one hundred thousand
men during his conquest of the Eajputs of Mewar. Among military operations
against foreign enemies, we must mention an invasion of the Mongols into the
Punjab. They were defeated in two battles by the sultan's son, Mohammed Khan,
who was, however, himself slain. Balban was especially distinguished for his
424 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
fanaticism ; and if Delhi under his rule gained a reputation as a centre of art and
science, this is due not so much to the ruler as to the disturbances of the period,
when every intellectually gifted man fled to the place of greatest security. The
capital thus became a refuge for numbers of deposed princes and high dignitaries,
and for a long time streets and squares were named after countries from which
those rulers had been expelled. BalbSu died at the age of eighty in 1287. He
was succeeded by his grandson, Mo'izz ed-din Kei Kobad, a youth of eighteen
years of age, who had inherited his father's sternness and cruelty without his
strength. He plunged into a life of dissipation and soon became a tool in the
hands of his grand vizier, Nizeiin ed-din. In 1290 he regained his freedom of
action by poisoning the vizier, but shortly afterward was himself murdered in his
palace by the new vizier, Jelal ed-din.
(8) The House of Khilji (the Second Tartar Dynasty). — Even under the rule
of Balban a transformation in Mameluke manners had taken place. This monarch
had abandoned the guiding principle of his predecessors of placing upstarts from
among the slaves in the most important offices, and had given them to men of
distinguished families of Afghan or Turko-Tartar origin. Of these families one of
the most important had long been that of the Khilji (Chalji), which had been
settled partly in the district at the sources of the Amu Daria during the tenth
century, while other parts had advanced to Afghanistan. There, while retaining
their Turkish dialect, they had embraced the Mohammedan belief, and gradually
adopted the Turkish civilization.
Their tribal chieftain, lelal ed-din Khilji, was seventy years of age when the
above-mentioned palace revolution gave him the supreme power in Delhi in the
year 1290. His dynastic title was Feroz (Finis) Shah II. To secure his position
he put out of the way the son of Kei KoMd, by name Gayomarth. In other
respects, however, he was a man of mild character, well disposed to all men, mod-
erate to weakness, even against his foes, a friend to the learned classes and the
priests. He was soon forced to turn his attention to the Moguls (that is, Mongols).
These he successfully overthrew in person in the Punjab (1292), while his nephew,
Ala ed-din Mohammed, whom he had appointed governor of the Duab between the
Jumna and the Ganges, suppressed a revolt in Bundelkand and Malwa (1293).
Ala ed-din then advanced, on his own responsibility, in 1294, with six thousand
horses upon a mad raid through the pathless mountains and forests of the Vindhya
Mountains, seven hundred miles southward. On the way he plundered the temple
of Somnat (p. 420). But the greatest booty he found in the well-watched fortress
of Devagiri (Daulatabad), which he captured by treachery. Before the southern
princes were able to collect their troops, he had returned to his own province by
another road. Under the pretext of asking pardon from his uncle for his inde-
pendent action, he enticed the aged Feroz Shah into his own province, and there
had him assassinated (July 19, 1295).
This deed is entirely characteristic of AM ed-din Mohammed Shah I, who
seized the government in 1296, after expelling his cousin, Ibrahim Shah I, the
lawful successor. Cruel, false, and treacherous, untroubled by the pricks of con-
science, with a ruthless tenacity which made him secure of his object in every
undertaking, he was an entire contrast to his benevolent uncle. To his subjects
he was invariably a terror, although he won general popularity by his splendid
"H HISTORY OF THE WORLD 425
court, his liberality, and good order. Conspiracies and revolts of relations, viziers
and Hindus, continued throughout the twenty years of his rule, but were always
suppressed with fearful severity. The kingdom was also disturbed by three Mogul
invasions. The first of these was vigorously repulsed in 1297, while the other
two (1298 and 1303) created but a small impression, and were the last of their
kind for a long period. It was not until 1310 that Mohammed Sha~h was able to
realise the desires he had formed upon his incursion to Devagiri of extending his
power upon the south.
The history of the Deccan during the first Mohammedan century of North India
is occupied by struggles between the Kajputs (p. 376) and Dravidians, by the foun-
dation and disappearance of Aryan-Dravidian kingdoms in the Central Deccan,
such as the Southern Mahratta kingdom, that of the Eastern Chalukya in Kalinga,
of the Western Chalukya in the Northern Konkan. To these must be added from
the thirteenth century the kingdoms of Gaupati and Bellala, further to the south
that of Mysore, and the earlier kingdoms of the Pa"ndya, Chola, and Chera (cf.
above, p. 387).
Mohammed Shah I entrusted the conquest of the Deccan to his favourite,
Malik Kasur, a former Hindu slave, who had renounced his religion, embraced
Mohammedanism, and risen to the highest offices in the kingdom. He overran the
Mahratta country in a rapid series of victories ; the capital of the Bellala, Dvara-
samudra, was captured and plundered (1311); the kingdoms of Chola and Pandya
were subjugated ; and in two years the whole of India, as far as Cape Comorin, was
subject to the rule of Delhi. The conquered princes became tributary vassals, and
only when they revolted or declined to pay tribute (Devagiri) were they deposed
and their territory incorporated with the empire.
This brilliant success in no way diminished the number of revolts which were
called into existence by the universal unpopularity of the sultan and his favourite.
Ali ed-din Mohammed Shah contracted the vice of drunkenness, and after suffering
from dropsy died on the 19th of December, 1316, perhaps from poison given him
by Kasur. The latter was, however, overthrown in the same year, and after the
eldest son, Shihab ed-din ('Omar Shah), had reigned for a short period, Mubarek
Shah, the third son of Ala ed-din, ascended the throne on the 21st of March, 1317,
and immediately secured his position by blinding his brother. Some statesmanlike
regulations aroused general hopes of a good reign, but shortly afterward the young
and voluptuous sultan left all state business to a Hindu renegade from the despised
Parvari caste, by name Nasir ed-din Khusrou Khan. On the 24th of March, 1321,
the sultan, with all the members of his family, was murdered by his emir, who
became sultan of Delhi, under the title of Khusrou Shah. Unpopular as he had
been while grand vizier, the animosity against him was raised to the highest point
by the shameless outrages upon Hindu and Mohammedan religious feeling which
he committed in giving the wives of the murdered sultan to his favourites in
marriage ; in setting up images of the Hindu gods in the mosques, and so forth.
Failing a legitimate heir to the throne, the movement was headed by the Moham-
medan governor of the Punjab, Ghiyis (Ghayath) ed-din Tughlak; he attacked
and slew the unpopular ruler at Delhi, after a reign of little more than four
months.
The supremacy of the Khilji had lasted only one generation ; and of this period
of thirty years, two-thirds belong to the reign of Mohammed Shah I. Under
426 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \Chapuriv
his strong government the kingdom had undergone a great transformation. The
hereditary enemies of the country, the Moguls, had been driven back for a long
period, and after their conversion to Mohammedanism, had retired to the Asiatic
highlands. Many of those who had remained behind embraced Mohammedanism
and. took service in the army, though in 1311 they were all put to death in conse-
quence of a conspiracy. The Khilji showed themselves largely tolerant in reli-
gious questions, and the frequent revolts of the Hindus were inspired rather by
national hatred than by religious oppression. Gradually the points of difference
between the peoples began to disappear. The Mohammedans adopted many Hindu
customs, and the latter also began to conform to those of the ruling race, as is
proved by the case of the Hindu favourites, whose influence was constantly an
important factor in the Indian history of that period. From this gradual fusion
arose the commercial dialect of the country, Hindustani, or Urdu (the language
of the camp). The different elements composing the vocabulary of this dialect
(Prakrit of the Duab, Persian, Turco-Tartar, etc.), indicate the extent of the racial
fusion which then took place.
Under Mohammed Shah I, the kingdom had attained its greatest extent
abroad (see the map, p. 430). A decree issued in Delhi was valid as far as the
southernmost point of India, and only a few Rajput princes continued to maintain
their independence. The acquisitions, however, which had been made thus rapidly
were never united by any firm bond of union, and even during Mohammed's time
that process of disruption began which made terribly rapid progress under the
following dynasties.
(e) The House of Tughlak (the third Tartar Dynasty). — Ghiyas ed-din Tughlak
I, the son of a Turcoman slave belonging to the sultan Balban (p. 423) and a Hindu
mother, had risen by his own merits to the position of a governor in the Punjab,
and had shown himself no less capable during the short period of his sultanate
(1321-1325). He directed his attention to the improvement of the country, to
the security of the western frontier, to the recovery of those parts of the kingdom
which had fallen away (Varangel), and to the suppression of rebels (Harasimha of
Tirhat). Upon his return from Tirhat he and his eldest son were killed by the
collapse of a pavilion erected for a festival, a catastrophe which had perhaps been
brought about by his second son, Fakhr ed-din Junah Khan, who succeeded him
in the government as Mohammed II, (ibn) Tughlak (1325-1351). His govern-
ment was marked by the infinite misery which he brought upon the country. He
was a man of high intellectual capacity and had enjoyed an excellent education,
was learned as few were, a distinguished author and a patron of learning ; at the
same time he carefully observed all the precepts of his religion, was liberal to
extravagance and founded hospitals, almshouses, and other benevolent institutions.
But all these good qualities were entirely overshadowed by the madness, as of the
Caesars, which characterised his every political action. His whimsicality ap-
proached the point of insanity. He led a huge army against the Moguls with the
object of inducing them to buy his retreat for an enormous sum, before swords had
been so much as drawn on either side (1327) ; one hundred thousand men were
sent to China, across the Tibetan passes of the Himalayas, which were utterly
impassable for an army on this scale ; they perished almost to the last man in ice
and snow (1337 ; cf. p. 345). A third army was sent to Persia, but disbanded before
i*ia\ HISTORY OF THE WORLD 427
operations began, and the soldiers dispersed plundering over their own country.
In 1339 a decree was suddenly issued to the effect that all the inhabitants of
Delhi should emigrate to Devagiri, which was henceforward called Daulatabad
(p. 424) ; twice they were allowed to return and twice was the emigration decree
reissued, on one occasion during a fearful famine which carried off many thou-
sands. The obligatory use of copper currency (instead of silver) brought financial
disaster upon the country. At the monarch's pleasure man-hunting parties were
organised throughout whole provinces, his own subjects were the quarry, and they
were killed like animals. The taxes were raised to an impossible extent and
extorted with such cruelty that large masses of the peasants fled to the forests and
formed robber bands. The natural result was that revolts broke out in every
direction against this mad ruler, and that the provinces strove their utmost to
secure their independence. The empire, which had embraced almost the whole
of India upon the accession of Mohammed Tughlak, was diminished at the time
of his death, in the fever swamps of Sindh, by the loss of Bengal (since 1338), the
coasts of Coromandel Devagiri, Gujerat, Sindh, and all the southern provinces
(since 1347) ; of twenty-three provinces scarce half were left to him. Mohammed
ibn Tughlak " left behind him the reputation of one of the most accomplished
princes and furious tyrants who have ever adorned or disgraced humanity"
(Mountstuart Elphinstone).
The damage which this mad ruler had inflicted upon the empire could not be
repaired even by the upright government of his successor Feroz (Firuz) Shah III,
who was born about 1300 and reigned from 1351 to 1388. His attempts to
recover the revolted provinces ended with the acquirement of only a nominal
supremacy. The country was, however, largely benefited by his domestic policy,
and he enabled the kingdom to recover its prosperity by a sensible and upright
system of taxation, by the honesty of his judicial administration, by his regula-
tions for military service, for which purpose he earmarked the revenue of certain
districts (Jaigir), by the completion of useful public works such as irrigation,
channels, reservoirs, dams, and canals (for instance, the great Jumna canal, which
the English have recently restored in part), and by the foundation of schools,
hospitals, caravanserais, etc.
The last five representatives of the House of Tughlak succeeded one another in
rapid succession after the death of F6r6z. The period from 1388 to 1394 was
a time of incessant civil war and ultimately the once powerful kingdom was
reduced to a few districts in the immediate neighbourhood of Delhi. At this
juncture the Moguls made an invasion in larger numbers and with greater ferocity
than they had ever previously attempted. They were no longer the undisciplined
hordes of Genghis Khan, but the well-drilled bands of Timur (p. 184). While the
last of the Tughlak princes, Mahmud Shah II, found a safe refuge in Gujerat, the
grey-haired conqueror advanced to Delhi, which opened its gates to him upon
a promise of protection (December 18, 1398). But one of those "misunderstand-
ings " which often occurred during the campaigns of Timur resulted in a fearful
massacre of the population. The conqueror laden with booty returned to Samar-
kand in 1399, and Mahmud Tughlak then reappeared from his hiding-place.
With his death, which closed an inglorious reign over an empire which was almost
non-existent (February, 1412), the dynasty of Tughlak became extinct.
428 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
(f) The Seiads. — After the Afghan Doulat Khan Lodi had ruled for a short
period (1413-1414), Khizr Khan, who had formerly been a governor and then a
revolted emir of Multan, seized what was left of Hindostan. His own province
speedily revolted, and his attempts (he died May 20, 1421), as those of his three
descendants, Mubarek Shah II, who ruled till January 28, 1435, Mohammed Shah
IV, until 1445, and 'Alim Shah, to recover the Punjab proved fruitless, and their
dominion was practically confined to the town of Delhi. These rulers of Shiite
belief and apparently of Alidish origin are collectively known as the dynasty of
the Seiads (1414-1451). Under 'Alim Shah the boundaries of the empire were
distant about an English mile from the capital, and at no time did they extend
further than a distance of twelve miles.
(77) The House of L6di. — In the year 1451 Bahlul L6di, who ruled over the
Punjab in Lahore, took possession of the town of Delhi. He died in 1488, but
his son Nizam Iskander (Sekander) II, who died in 1517, succeeded in extending
the boundaries of the kingdom westward beyond Lahore and eastward beyond
Benares and the Bundelkand. However, under the grandson of Bahlul, Ibrahim II
(1517-1526), a proud and tyrannical ruler, serious revolts broke out. The east-
ern districts were entirely separated from the kingdom, and his governors in the
Punjab rose against him and called in his powerful neighbour Baber from Cabul
to their assistance. These shocks put an end to the feeble rule of the Lodi princes
(p. 429) and a new period of brilliant prosperity then began for Hindostan.
(0) Political Changes in the South of India since ISlfl. — Mohammed ibn
Tughlak had undergone the mortification of seeing the southern province with its
capital of Daulatabad secede during his lifetime, in spite of the partiality he had
shown for it. The Viceroy of the district, Hasan Gangu, a Shiite Afghan, declared
himself independent in 1347, transferred the capital to Kulbarga on the west of
Haidarabad, and became the founder of the Bahmani dynasty. His frontiers
extended from Berar to Kistna and from the Sea of Bengal to that of Arabia;
to this empire were added Konkan, Khandesh, and Gujerat by his great-grandson,
Ala ed-dm Ahmed Shah II (1435-1457). The Bahmani dynasty attained its
greatest power at the outset of the reign of Mahmud Shah II (1482-1518), who
ruled over the whole of the Deccan north of Mysore. This rapid rise was followed
by an equally rapid fall ; by the revolts of the provincial governors, the north was
broken into five small Mohammedan States between 1484 and 1512, while in the
south the kingdom of Bijayanagar rapidly rose to high prosperity.
Of those revolted governors the first was Fattah Ullah 'Irnad (Ihmad), Shah
of Berar, a converted Hindu of Bijayanagar ; his empire, which was founded
in 1484 (capital town, Ellitshpur), continued until 1568 when it was absorbed
by Akbar. In rapid succession followed the governors 'Adil Shah of Bijapur,
whose empire lasted from 1489 to 1686, and Nizam Shah of Ahmednazar, from
1490 to 1595. Two years later the governor Barid Shah of Bedar made himself
independent (his dynasty lasting until 1609), as did finally in 1512 Kutb Shah
of Golconda (Haidarabad ; his dynasty lasting until 1687). None of these petty
Mohammedan States was able to secure predominance, and after a varying period
of prosperity all were reabsorbed into that Delhi kingdom from which they had
originated.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 429
•J
In this rivalry of the Mohammedan Deccan States the greatest success was
attained by a Hindu State in the south, the kingdom of Bijayanagar, which
was founded in 1326 by two fugitives from the low caste tribe of the Kurumba
(shepherds), though it was unable to attain any considerable importance in view
of the overwhelming strength of its Mohammedan neighbours on the north. The
first dynasty of Bijayanagar became extinct in 1479 ; the second, a side branch of
Narasinha, founded about 1450, rapidly rose to prosperity. The Chola had long
since lost their former importance and the power of the Pa"ndya (p. 387) was then
broken. At the end of the fifteenth century Bijayanagar was indisputably the
predominant Hindu power in the south of the peninsula ; the petty Hindu States
from Kattak to Travancore were dependent upon this kingdom. At the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century it was in possession of the whole of the east coast
(see the map, p. 430). The importance of this great Hindu State and of its
artistic rulers is evidenced by the magnificent ruins which are now buried in
the jungles of Bellary. Bijayanagar was under no apprehension of attack from
the Mohammedan States in the north, which held one another in check until the
middle of the sixteenth century ; when, however, they joined in common action
against the Hindu State this latter inevitably collapsed.
(6) The Mogul Empire of the Timurites until ' Alamgir II (1526-17 59}.—
(a) Baber. — The series of the Mogul emperors begins with one of the most
brilliant and attractive figures in the whole of Asiatic history, the sultan Baber
(Zehir ed-din Mohammed Babur or Babur II x) " The Lion." He was the son of
Omar, four generations removed from Timur in direct descent, and one of the
small princes in the magnificent mountain country of Ferghana (in the upper
Oxus district), his mother being a Mongolian woman ; on the death of his father
(1493) he found himself surrounded by danger on every side. In 1494 he took
up the reins of government in person, and the following ten years of his life are
full of battles and dangers, bold exploits and severe defeats, brilliant successes and
heavy losses ; now he was on the throne of a great kingdom, and again an almost
abandoned fugitive in the inaccessible gorges of his native mountains ; his adven-
tures during that period would of themselves suffice to make up the most eventful
life that man could possibly desire. At the end of 1504 he was obliged to yield
before the superior power of the Uzbegs (p. 186), and giving up all hope of terri-
tory from that side of the Hindu Kush he fled across the mountains to Afghanis-
tan. Two months later (1505) he had taken Cabul which remained henceforward
in his possession, but even then his life was a constant series of desperate efforts
and remarkable changes of fortune. At the same time his personality is most
i Ttmflr (13C9-1404)
I — '
Jeiai ed-dtn Mh-an Shah, Shah Rukh, 1414-47 in Transoxania
1404-7 in Aserbeijan and Irak J ,
I 1 Ulfigh beg, 1409 in Transoxania, t 1449 BSysankar, t end of 1432-3
Sultfin Abu" Sa'id,
1451-67 in Transoxania
|
• . . . Aia ed-douleh,
Rakyah Sultan
t Oct. 1459 Baber I, Bahadur,
1450-57 in Khorasan
(p. 186)
j
Sultan Ahmed Mahmud
1468-93 in 1493-4 in
Traasoxania Transoxania
'Omar Shaikh in Andijan and Ferghanah, nat. 1453, t 1493
Married Kutluk NikSr khanum, t 3 June, 1505
1
Baber II, Chiefly after Ferd. Justi, Iranisches
nat. 14 Feb. 1483, t 26 Dec. 1530. Namenbuch (Marburg, 1895).
430 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter 17
human, and for that reason most attractive ; he was a man of pure and deep feel-
ing, his love for his mother and his relations was as remarkable as his kindness
to his conquered foes. The depth and the warmth of these sympathies he has
expressed with every elaboration of style in Turkish and Persian songs, and his
M< -moire," written in East Turkish (Jagatai), reflect the character of that ex-
traordinary man and certainly form one of the most remarkable works in the
literary history of any nation.
The defeats which Baber had suffered in Transoxania and Bactria induced him
to turn his gaze to India ; he was able to claim the Punjab as the heir of Timur,
and the invitation of Doulat Khan, the rebel Lodi governor in Lahore, gave him
both a pretext and a motive for attacking the neighbouring kingdom in 1524; he
found no difficulty in overcoming such resistance as was offered in the Punjab.
He was especially superior to his opponents in artillery, and crossed the Sutlej at
the end of 1525. At Panipat (p. 421) between the Sutlej and the Jumna, ten
miles north of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi took up a position on the 21st of April, 1526,
with a force whose numbers are reported as 100,000 soldiers and 1,000 war ele-
phants to oppose the 25,000 warriors of Baber, and lost both his throne and his
life. Delhi (April 24) and Agra, which had been the residence of the Hindostan
Afghans from 1503 to 1504, immediately fell into the hands of the conqueror, who
divided the rich imperial treasures among his warriors, including the famous dia-
mond, the Kohinoor ("the mountain of light"); this jewel, which had previously
been taken from the Khilji Mohammed Shah, now fell to the lot of Humayun, the
sou of Baber, and has been the glory of the English Crown jewels since 1850.
The victory of Panipat gave Baber possession of North India to the northeast of
Delhi and also the small strip of land along the Jumna as far as Agra. Shortly
before the end of 1526 he was also master of the district south of the Jumna as
far as Gwalior. He was now opposed by the Hindus. The princes of Eajputana
led by Eana Sanka, the ruler of Chitor, Me war, and Ajmir, marched against him
with a powerful army to a point seven miles distant from the west of Agra. A
battle was fought at Fattepur Sikri, or Kanwa, on the 16th of March, 1527, and
the Eajputs were utterly defeated ; Mewar fell into the hands of the conqueror
who immediately proceeded to reorganise the administration of his new acquisi-
tions. How the Eajputs could tight with the courage of despair, Baber was to
learn in the following year when he besieged one of the princes who had escaped
from the battle of Sikri in his fortress of Chande'ri. As his troops were storming
the walls on the second day, the enemies set fire to the town with their wives and
children after the manner of the old Kshatriyas, and then rushed upon the foe with
drawn swords ; the body-guard of the prince killed one another, each man strug-
gling for the first blow. In 1529, Mahmud Lodi, a brother of Ibrahim, was
expelled from Oudh, the southern part of Behar on the right bank of the Ganges
was captured, and the Eaja Nasir ed-din Nasrat Shah of Bengal was forced to lay
down his arms.
In three years Baber had conquered in a series of brilliant victories the whole
"t tli.- North Indian 1 Mains as far as Bengal (see the map here inserted).
N«.\v, lio\v.-vcr, his health, which had been undermined by the extraordinary pri-
vations nf his life, began to fail. On the 26th of December, 1530, Baber the Lion
before the age of fifty; his last words to his son and heir Humayun, were
"Do not kill your brothers, but watch over them tenderly,"
Ul
/*H HISTORY OF THE WORLD 431
(/3) Humay&n and the Sdri Dynasty. — Baber was succeeded by his son NSsir
ed-din Mohammed Humayftn, who was born in 1507 ; he, however, had not inherited
either his father's iron will or his pertinacity, much less his firm principles, his high
ambition, his warmth of heart, and his unchanging fidelity. Baber had intended
Humayun to become ruler of the kingdom, and had destined the governorship of
Cabul and Kandahar for his second son, Ka"mran. Humayun considered that his
brother would be more closely united to himself if he also received the governor-
ship of the Punjab. But by thus renouncing his native territory he also lost com-
mand of the stout warrior Afghan tribes, thereby considerably weakening his
military power in India, and this moreover at a time when enemies rose against
him on every side, after the disappearance of the powerful figure of Baber. His
first duty was to crush the revolts raised by the generals of the last Afghan rulers,
and then to punish Bahadur Shah, the Kaja of Gujerat, for his intrigues. Baha-
dur was expelled by the emperor in person ; hardly, however, had he returned
to his capital to deal with an outbreak in Bengal when the troops he had left
in Gujerat were driven out and he was even obliged to renounce his claims to
Maiwa.
Meanwhile upon the east, in Bengal, a heavy storm was threatening the Mogul
power. Ferid Khan, a Mohammedan of high talent, who apparently belonged to
the Afghan royal family of the Suri, had assumed the leadership of all the enemies
of the Mogul rule and was speedily able to secure the possession of Bihar. Hu-
mayun was forced to besiege the strong fortress of Chunar, an operation which
detained him for many months at Benares ; meanwhile Bengal was conquered by
his cunning opponent, who had in the meantime adopted the title of Shir (" Lion ")
Shah. He then defeated the descendant of Timur in two battles in 1539 (Chonsa)
and 1540 (near Kanauj) ; after these misfortunes Humayun was obliged to aban-
don his kingdom and take refuge with his brother Kamran at Lahore. Here,
however, his position was equally unstable ; Kamran was terror-stricken at the
unexpected success of Shir Shah, with whom he concluded peace, the price being the
cession of the Punjab, while the deposed emperor was forced to spend a period of
disappointment, terrible privation, and constant flight in Eajputana ; on the 14th
of October, 1542, his son Akbar was born to him in the desert of Thar at the time
of his greatest need. In 1543 he turned to Kandahar. Shir Shah, who had been
master of the whole Ganges district after his decisive victories over Humayun, now
turned his attention to the improvement of domestic organisation, and did his best
to foster the progress of agriculture, to provide for public peace and security, to
improve communication by making long roads, and to reorganise the bureaucracy,
the taxation system, and the administration of justice. He met with a violent
death on the 22d of May, 1545, during the siege of a hostile fortress.
His successor, Selim (Islam) Shah, attempted to continue his father's adminis-
tration ; his short reign (1545-1553) was largely occupied with the suppression of
different revolts. Under the government of his incompetent or vicious successors,
Feroz (1553), Mohammed (1553), Ibrahim (1554), and Secander (1555), the empire
rapidly fell to pieces. Disturbances broke out in every quarter, and the way
was opened for the return of Humayun. He defeated two armies at Sirhind,
and returned to Delhi as king in the summer of 1555. However, almost ex-
actly six months after his re-entry he died from an injury received by a fall
(January, 1556).
432 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
(7) Akbar. — The young Abu '1-f ath Jelal ed-din Akbar, who ascended the
throne of Hindostan on the 23d of February, 1556, had been entrusted by his
father to the care of the faithful Turcoman Bairam Khan, whose bold action had
in the meantime inflicted a total defeat upon the armies of the Lodis, under Hemu
on the 5th of November, 1556, in a second battle of Panipat (p. 429), who had in the
meantime advanced beyond Delhi and Agra. State administration was for the mo*
ment carried on also by Bairam, who made himself unpopular by his jealousy for
the prestige of his title of Khan Babu (royal father). However during a hunting
expedition Akbar suddenly returned to the capital, and issued a decree to the effect
that he would henceforward take all State business under his own control (1560).
Bairam in surprise attempted a revolt, but failing adherents was obliged to
submit to the young emperor, who received him with all honour. In the same
year Bairam was murdered by one of his enemies when on the point of making a
pilgrimage to Mecca.
Akbar was then obliged to confront the task of uniting into one powerful king-
dom the country of India, which had been devastated by centuries of war and was
broken into hundreds of petty principalities. Before his time every conqueror had
been the ruler of a foreign land whence he had drawn support and strength ; Akbar
at the age of eighteen was obliged to rely upon himself alone. The character of
Baber had been inherited by his grandson ; Akbar possessed his grandfather's in-
tellectual powers, his iron will, and his great heart with all its warm benevolence.
The son of a fugitive emperor, born in the desert, brought up in nominal confine-
ment, he had known the bitter side of life from his youth up. Fortune had given
him a powerful frame, which he trained to support the extremities of exertion.
Physical exercise was with him a passion ; he was devoted to the chase, and espe-
cially to the fierce excitement of catching the wild horse or elephant or slaying the
dangerous tiger. On one occasion, when it was necessary to dissuade the Kaja of
Jotpur to abandon his intention of forcing the widow of his deceased son to mount
the funeral pyre, Akbar rode two hundred and twenty miles in two days. In battle
he displayed the utmost bravery. He led his troops in person during the danger-
ous part of a campaign, leaving to his generals the lighter task of finishing the war.
In every victory he displayed humanity to the conquered, and decisively opposed
any exhibition of cruelty. Free from all those prejudices which separate society
and create dissension, tolerant to men of other beliefs, impartial to men of other
races, whether Hindu or Dravidian, he was a man obviously marked out to weld
the conflicting elements of his kingdom into a strong and prosperous whole.
In all seriousness he devoted himself to the work of peace. Moderate in all
pleasures, needing but little sleep, and accustomed to divide his time with the
utmost accuracy, he found leisure to devote himself to science and art after the
completion of his State duties. The famous personages and scholars who adorned
his capital were at the same time his friends ; every Thursday evening a circle of
these was collected for intellectual conversation and philosophical discussion. His
closest friends were two highly talented brothers, Shekh Feizi and Abu'l Fazl, the
sons of a learned free-thinker. The elder of these was a famous scholar in Hindu
literature ; with his help, and under his direction, Akbar had the most important
of the Sanscrit works translated into Persian. Fazl, on the other hand, who was
an especially close friend of Akbar, was a general, a statesman, and an organiser,
and to his activity Akbar's kingdom chiefly owed the solidarity of its internal
organisation.
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 433
For a long period in India authority of any description had been unknown, and
the years of Humsiyun's exile had proved unfavourable to the introduction of
severer measures among the Moguls. Under Akbar, also, many generals, after he
had reduced a revolted province to order, attempted to keep back the taxes payable
to Delhi and to claim the district for themselves ; instances were Oudh, Malwa, Ben-
gal, etc. Some were overthrown with a strong hand, others the emperor was able
to bring over to himself by clemency. His own brother, Mohammed Hakim, who
attempted to occupy the Punjab in 1566, was expelled from the country. Akbar
won over the Kajput princes by a display of kindness and concession. He him-
self married the two princesses of Amber and Marwar, and his eldest son, Selim
Jehangir, had a princess of Amber to wife. The princes of those petty States who
were treated by the powerful emperor as equals, gladly forgot that their ruler was an
alien both by his creed and his descent, and considered it an honour to occupy high
positions in Akbar's army. Of these one only, the Prince of Chitor, maintained
an attitude of hostility. His capital was besieged by Akbar in 1567, and the bold
commander was shot by the emperor himself upon the walls ; after the old Kajput
custom the garrison first killed their wives and children and then themselves,,
but the prince, who had fled, still declined to submit. At a later period during
Akbar's lifetime the son of this expelled monarch succeeded in founding a new
State in Udipur, whose rulers still pride themselves upon the fact that their
genealogy remains unstained by any trace of connection with the emperors of
Delhi.
The remnants of the last Mohammedan dynasty offered a yet more vigorous
resistance to Akbar than the Rajputs. In 1559 these "Afghans" were expelled
from Oudh and Malwa. In Gujerat various pretenders to the throne were quar-
relling. One of these called in Akbar to his help, who expelled the combatants
collectively and reconstituted the country as a province in the years 1572-1573 ;
in 1581 fresh disturbances broke out, and an indecisive struggle was continued for
a long period, until peace was secured by the death of Mozaffar III Habib (1593).
Similarly much time elapsed before Bengal was definitely conquered ; with the
exception of the son of Sulaima"n Khan Karara"ni, Da~vud Shah, who had surrendered
in 1576, neither the Mogul generals nor the Afghans were definitely pacified until
1592. Orissa also fell into the power of the ruler of Delhi. In Sindh military
adventurers, stragglers left from the Afghan supremacy, also continued their in-
trigues ; they were subdued in 1592, and pacified by the gift of high positions
within the empire. A short campaign against Prince Yusuf of Kashmir belonging
to the Chak dynasty led in 1586-1587 to the incorporation of that province, which
now became a favourite summer residence of the Mogul emperors. A harder struggle
was fought with the tribes of the almost inaccessible Kafiristan (the Yusufsai) ;
even at the present day the configuration of their district has enabled them to
maintain their independence. The last conquest in the extreme west was Kanda-
har, which had been already occupied by Humayun, but had been retaken by the
Persians in the first years of Akbar's reign ; the emperor recovered this district in
1593-1594.
Thus the kingdom of Akbar extended from Afghanistan to Orissa and from the
Himalaya to the Narbada (see the map, p. 430). Beyond this latter boundary
the confusion was no less than it had previously been in the north. Akbar
was called in by one of the disputants, and his army quickly got possession of
VOL. II — 28
434 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
Berar, with its capital, Ellichpur ; however, an unexpected resistance was encoun-
tered before Ahmednagar, the central point of the Mohammedan States of the
Deccan. A woman of unusually strong character, by name Cha~nd Bibi, who was
regent for her great-nephew Bahadur Nizam. Shah during his minority, united
several of the disputing princes before .the approaching danger; when besieged in
her capital, she succeeded in inspiring her adherents with so fierce a spirit of resist-
ance that the Moguls were glad to conclude peace on the condition that the claims
of Chftnd Bib! to Berar should be given up (1596). Fresh disturbances led to a
renewed invasion of the Moguls. After an indecisive battle Akbar himself took
command of his troops (1599), but Ahmednagar resisted until Chand Bibi was mur-
dered by her own troops in 1600. Akbar now set up a nominal ruler, Morteda* II,
whose dynasty came to an end in 1637 under Shah Jehan.
The last years of Akbar's life were troubled by severe domestic misfortunes
and by his sorrow at the death of his friend Abu'l Fazl. The Prince Selim (Jehan-
gir), who had been appointed his successor, was addicted to the pleasures of drink
and opium, and was a passionate character and a deadly enemy of his father's chief
counsellor, Fazl. Akbar had appointed his son as Viceroy of Ajmir ; that, how-
ever, proved insufficient to satisfy his ambition. He aimed at the possession of
the imperial throne, took possession of the State treasury, assumed the title of king,
and occupied Oudh and Behar. Akbar, however, treated him kindly, and Selim
made a show of submission, but revenged himself by a cowardly stroke ; he incited
one of the petty princes in Bundelkand to murder Abu'l Fazl by treachery (1602).
This calamity was followed by the loss of Danial, the third prince, who succumbed
to an attack of dropsy on the 8th of April, 1605, a disease which had already car-
ried off his elder brother Murad in 1599. By these heavy blows of adversity the
emperor's powers were broken. After a long illness his condition rapidly grew
worse, and on the 15th of October, 1605, died Akbar, the greatest ruler who ever
sat upon the throne of India.
Under the rule of every Mohammedan conqueror who had invaded India from
the northwest, the land had suffered by reason of the twofold antagonisms of
religion and race. In either of these cases the Hindus, who formed the majority
of the population, were considered as of no account ; they repaid with their hatred
the pride and scorn with which they were treated, and prosperity for India was
obviously impossible under such rulers. History has justly honoured Akbar with
the title of " The Great," but the honour is due less to his military success than
to the insight with which he furthered the internal welfare of the country and to
the manner in which he abrogated the antagonisms of religion and race by grad-
ually obliterating the most salient differences.
At the time of his accession Akbar was a good Mohammedan, and in 1576 he
projected a pilgrimage to Mecca to the grave of the Prophet. Shortly afterwards,
however, the interchange of philosophical ideas during his evening gatherings
(p. 432) was stimulated by the presence not only of the Mohammedan mollah, but
also of the learned Brahman priest and even the Eoman missionary. No one of
these religions appeared to him as absolutely true. Under their influence and in
the conversation of his confidential friends the conception of that jealous God
which Mohammed had borrowed from Moses was transformed to the idea of a
Supreme Being watching over all men with equal love, while the doctrine of the
God incarnate became in him a pure belief, high above all material conceptions, to
India
*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 435
the effect that the Deity can be apprehended not through any revelation in human
shape, but only by the exercise of reason and understanding ; a Deity, also, to be
served not by all kinds of ceremonies and empty forms, but by moral purity of
life. If weak humanity desires material symbols of the Supreme Being, then the
loftiest to be found are the sun, the constellations, or the fire. Akbar's conception
of God left no place for ritual precepts, for prophets or priests.
However, to support his dignity in the eyes of the people, he issued decrees
announcing that the kinu was the head of the church, his formula of confession
O O
being as follows : " There is no God but God, and Akbar is his Caliph ; " at the
same time he never employed force to impose his religious views upon dissentients.
These views indeed were too abstract and profound for popular consumption, and
were unintelligible except to a small circle of philosophical adherents. Toleration
was a fundamental principle in his character, and he was never anxious to convert
the members of other religions. Every Mussulman was allowed the free exercise
of his religious principles, but on the other hand such principles were binding
upon no one else. Thus he was opposed to those many forms of compulsion which
Mohammedanism lays upon public and private life ; Akbar did nothing to further
the study of the language of the Koran, and showed no preference for Arabic
names such as Mohammed, Ahmed, etc. ; the formula of greeting, " Peace be with
you," was replaced by the sentence, " God is great," etc. Thus to a certain extent
Akbar curtailed the privileges of his native religion. At the same time he removed
many of the disabilities which burdened the Hindus and their religious practices ;
the poll tax upon unbelievers, a source of deep dissatisfaction among the Hindus,
and the dues levied upon pilgrims during their journeys were entirely remitted ;
their religious practice was interfered with only in cases where the pronounce-
ments of the priests were totally opposed to the principles of humanity, as for
instance in cases of trial by ordeal, child marriage, compulsory death upon the
funeral pyre, and the enforced celibacy of widows, etc. The civil rights of Mo-
hammedans and Hindus in no way differed, and every position in the State, high or
low, was open to members of either religion.
In the domestic administration of his great kingdom Akbar displayed the
greatest foresight and energy. Former rulers had been accustomed to collect the
taxes by methods inconceivably disastrous. The incomes of important districts
had been appropriated to individual generals who were allowed to extort the
utmost possible amount from the inhabitants, and for this purpose a large force of
troops was permanently kept on foot. The imperial taxes properly so called were
collected by an army of officials who were accessible to influence of every kind
and appropriated no small portion of the receipts as they passed through their
hands. Shir Shah (p. 430) had been the only ruler to introduce a more equable
system of taxation, and the regulations made during his short reign were swept
away in the confusion of the following years. In its main details Akbar's system
was a further development and extension of that of Shir Shah. He was fortunate
in finding in the Hindu Todar Mai a man of stainless probity and admirable
capacity for organisation, who did more than any one else to restore the adminis-
tration and especially the taxation system. Todar Mai was the first official to
make a complete and exact census of the whole territory north of the Narbada.
A survey was taken of all arable land, an accurate estimate made of the products,
and taxation calculated from these data, the amount being established at one-third
436 HISTORY OF ~THE WORLD [Chapter ir
of th? average produce for the previous ten years. Undue severity was thus
avoided as far as possible, and in times of famine or failure of the crops taxes
were remitted and advances made of gold or corn. Shir Shah had indeed ap-
pointed only one-fourth of the yearly produce as the unit of taxation; however,
Akbar's regulations proved more advantageous both for the State and for the agri-
cultural population, as peculation was prevented by a strict system of book-keeping
and by the possibility of appeal to higher officials, while the fixity of the regula-
tions enabled one-half of the revenue officials to be dispensed with. All officials,
officers and soldiers included, received a fixed and liberal salary, and were no-
longer obliged to depend upon incomes drawn legally or illegally from subsidiary
sources.
Trade and commerce were promoted, a strong impulse in this direction being
given by the introduction of a uniform currency ; the hundreds of different cur-
rencies which had hitherto been in circulation were called in, and an imperial
coinage was struck in the mints of every province. The empire was divided into
fifteen provinces (three of which were in the Deccan), and these were governed
under imperial direction by governors who were invested with civil and military
powers. The administration of justice, as far as the Mohammedans were con-
cerned, lay in the hands of a supreme judge, Mir-i-adl, whose decision was final ;
he was assisted by a Kasi who undertook preliminary investigations and pro-
duced the legal codes bearing upon the case ; the Hindus were judged by Brah-
inans with a legal training. The organisation of the army was, comparatively
speaking, less vigorous and consistent. On the whole, however, the internal organ-
isation of the State, which was laid down to the smallest detail in the " Ayini-
Akbari " (the ordinances of Akbar) by Abu'l Fazl, marked a great step in advance,
and proved a blessing to the country, which enjoyed a prosperity hitherto
unexampled.
(8) Jehftngir. — When Akbar died he had appointed as his successor his son,
Xfir ed-din Mohammed Selim, who took the imperial title of Jehanglr (that is,
World Conqueror). In previous years he had often been a sore anxiety to his
father, chiefly by reason of his drunkenness and furious anger which provoked him
to acts of cruelty and often broke out during his reign. When his chief general,
Mahabat Khan, had married his daughter without previously announcing his in-
iii, he had the newly wed couple fiogged with thorns, and deprived the general
of the dowry and of his private possessions; after the revolt of his son Khusrou,
he had seven hundred of his adherents impaled along the road before the gates of
Lahore, while his son in chains upon an elephant was conducted through this
palisading.
Sir Thomas Eoe made some stay at the Indian court from 1615 to 1618 as the
ambassador of King James I, and has given us an account of the brilliancy of the
court life, of the emperor's love for splendour and display, of his kindness to Euro-
peans, numbers of whom came to his court, of his tolerance to other religions and
especially to Christianity ; two pearls in his crown were considered by him a-<
repre-.-ntin^ the heads of Christ and Mary, and two of his nephews were allowed
to embrace Christianity, However, the same ambassador also relates accounts
of 1 >a ii' i nets that lasted through the night, of which drunkenness was the in va-
riable result, the orgies being led by the emperor himself. At the same time the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 437
emperor attempted to play the part of a stern Mohammedan ; when during the day
one of the initiated allowed a thoughtless reference to one of these orgies to escape
him, the emperor asked seriously who had been guilty of such an offence against
the law, and inflicted so severe a bastinado upon those who had been his guests
at the forbidden entertainment that one of them died. Of the general condition of
the empire Koe gives a description which compares unfavourably with the state
of affairs under Akbar. He praises the financial arrangements, but characterises
the administration as loose, the officials as tyrannical and corrupt, and mentions
the decay of militarism in the army, the backbone of which was now the Rajput
and Afghan contingents. " The time will come," he wrote, " when all in these
kingdoms will be in great combustion." However, the reign of Jehaugir passed
by without any great collapse ; Akbar's institutions had been too firmly rooted to
fall by the maladministration of one government only.
Jehangir had been already married at an early date (1586-1587) to a daughter
of Ka"y Singh of Amber ; a Persian woman, however, by name Nur Jeha~n, " The
light of the world," gained complete influence over him. Her grandfather had
occupied an important position in Teheran ; her father, however, was so impover-
ished that the future empress upon her birth was exposed in the street, where a
rich merchant found her, adopted her, and called in her own mother as foster nurse.
Nur Jehan received a good education, and by her wit and beauty she won the heart
of the crown prince Selini (JehSngir), whose attentions became so pressing that
upon Akbar's advice a young Persian was given her hand together with an estate
in Bengal. Hardly had Jehangir been a year upon the throne when he made pro-
posals to the husband, which the latter answered by killing the emissaries who
brought them and was himself cut to pieces in consequence. In 1611 Nur Jehan
gave way, and henceforward her influence over the emperor was complete. As
long as her excellent father, who had been made grand vizier of the empire, was
alive, she exerted that influence for good ; Jehangir restrained his drunkenness, and
ceased those inhumanities which had stained the imperial title in previous years.
A war with Udipur (p. 432) was rapidly brought to an end (1614) by the second
prince, Shihab ed-din Mohammed Khurram Shah Jehan ; his bold action also
brought the war against the Mohammedan Deccan, which had opened unfavour-
ably, to a successful conclusion. The emperor hated his eldest son, Khusrou, who
died in imprisonment in 1622, but the second was both his favourite and that of
the empress, who gave him her niece in marriage ; he was publicly appointed suc-
cessor to the throne. However, Nur Jehiin had consulted 110 one's pleasure but
her own after her father's death, and she now gave her favour to the youngest o2
the princes, who was closely connected with herself by his marriage with her
daughter. When his father fell seriously ill, Shah JehSn, who had been placed in
the background, marched upon Delhi, but was obliged to retreat to Telingana and
Bengal, where he was defeated by Mahabat Khan. The latter then suddenly in-
curred the displeasure of the empress, and with a view of anticipating any act of
hostility on her part, he seized the persons both of the emperor and the empress.
They succeeded in escaping from imprisonment and in concluding a compact with
Mahabat which provided that he should once more take the field against Shah
Jehan ; but the general was afraid of the later vengeance of Nur JehSn and de-
serted to the prince. There was no further collision between the two parties ;
the emperor died in 1627, while upon a journey from Kashmir to Lahore. Nur
438 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
Jehan was treated with respect by the successor to the throne ; she survived her
husband by nineteen years, which she spent in dignified seclusion, winning uni-
versal affection by her benevolence.
(e) Shah Jehan. — Sh.ah Jehan I, after the slaughter of his brother Shahriyar,
who had formed an alliance with two sons of Danial (p. 433), and the suppression
..t' u revolt in Bundelkand, put an end to the short rule of his nephew Dawarbakhsh,
the son of Khusrou, and found himself in undisputed possession of the throne in
1628 ; under his rule the Mogul Empire attained the zenith of its wealth and pros-
perity. The emperor displayed great perspicacity in the choice of capable officials,
exercised a strong personal supervision over the administration, introduced many
improvements, and in the course of twenty years extended the system of territorial
• urupatioii and taxation which had been created by Todar Mai (p. 434) to the dis-
tricts on the far side of the Narbada. Though he is described as reserved and
••xi-lusive before his accession, he afterwards appeared kindly, courteous, and pater-
nally benevolent to his subjects, and succeeded in winning over those Mohammedans
whom Akbar had formerly affronted, without losing the good-will of the Hindus.
The best evidences for the brilliance of this period are the numberless private
and public buildings which arose under his government, not only in the two capitals
of Delhi and Agra, but also in all other important centres in the kingdom, even in
places which are now abandoned. Under Shah Jehan, Delhi was as entirely
transformed as Borne under Nero or Paris under Napoleon III. The palaces of
his period, with their reception rooms, their marble-pillared halls, their courts and
private rooms, together with the mosques and mausoleums, marked the zenith of
Mohammedan art in India. Of these monuments the most famous is the mau-
soleum called the Taj-i-Mahal (" Crown of the harem ; " see the plate, " The Taj
Mahal at Agra"), the grave of Nur-i-Mahal ("Light of the harem "), a favourite
consort of the emperor. Opposite the imperial fortress of Agra rises this building,
one of the most delicate constructions in the world, its outline clear and simple as
crystal, built in marble, of wonderfully delicate colouring, with decorations which
bear the mark of a fine and restrained taste. Symbolical of court life and splendour
is the famous peacock throne, a decoration for the imperial chair, made of diamonds,
emeralds, rubies, sapphires, etc., which represented in its form and colours a pea-
cock's tail fully extended. The traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), a
jeweller by profession, estimates the collective value of the precious stones employed
in this ornament at 160,500,000 livres. Though such works of architecture and
artistic skill must have cost enormous sums, and though many lives were sacrificed
in the numerous wars of Shah Jehan, the people enjoyed high prosperity under his
rule ; and the emperor, surpassing in this respect the Medicean Lorenzo " the Mag-
nificent," left a vast quantity of State treasures behind him at his death.
Those disturbances which had broken out in the Deccan in 1629 were speedily
suppressed by the emperor, who forced the State of Ahmednagar to conclude a
peace favourable to Delhi. Upon a fresh outbreak four years later this province
was incorporated with the Delhi kingdom (1637), and Abdallahof Golconda,who
in alliance with this foe, was forced to pay tribute. Affairs beyond the
Afghan frontier ran a less favourable course. The Uzbegs, who had penetrated
inlo Cubul, were at first driven back from Balkh ; in 1637 Kandahar, which had
been occupied by the Persians, was also reconquered. When, however, the Uzbegs
/miirt]
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 439
renewed their advance in 1618, the emperor's third son, Mohammed Muhi ed-din
Aurang zeb (Aurungzebe), was forced to retreat during the winter of 1647 over
the Hindu Kush, and lost the greater part of his army in consequence ; Kandahar
was reconquered by the Persians in 1648, and remained in their possession, Shah
Jehan definitely renouncing the idea of reconquest in 1653. In the year 1655
fresh complications broke out in the Deccan. Aurang zeb, who had been sent there
as governor, made a treacherous incursion into Golconda ; the capital was stormed,
plundered, and burnt, and in 1656 AJbdallah was forced to conclude peace under
conditions of great severity. Bijapur was then surprised on some trivial pretext.
But before the subjugation of this district could be carried out, Aurang zeb re-
ceived news of his father's sudden illness, and was obliged to conclude a treaty
with Mohammed of Bijapur, on conditions favourable to the latter, in order that
he might march northward with his army (1657).
Shah Jehah had been prostrated by ursemia. Four of the emperor's sons, who
were equally brave but different in position and character, immediately appeared as
rival claimants for the throne. Dara Shukoh, born in 1613, was a man of Akbar's
type, talented, liberal, well disposed to the Hindus, and friendly to Europeans and
Christians ; however, his manner was against him, he was passionate, often insult-
ing, had no personal following, and was especially unpopular among the Moham-
medans. The second prince, Shoja, was a drunkard, and was hated by the
Mohammedans for his leanings to the Shiite doctrine. On the other hand, Aurang
zeb was a fanatical Mohammedan, beloved for his affability, with a halo of glory
from his recent exploits, but ambitious and treacherous. The fourth prince, Murad
bakhsh, was of a noble disposition, but was intellectually of no account and was
marked by a leaning to sensuality. Aurang ze"b, who was at the head of a well-
tried army, allowed his two elder brothers to destroy one another, while he gained
over the short-sighted Murad by exaggerated praise and flattery and by promises
of the succession. With the help of Murad he then defeated Dara, who had
emerged victorious from the struggle with Shoja, and invited the unsuspicious man,
under a pretext of celebrating his victory, to a feast ; on the next morning Murad
awoke from his debauch to find himself a prisoner in the citadel of Delhi, but was
afterwards transferred to the State prison of Gwalior.
Meanwhile Shah Jehan I had recovered and again assumed the government.
As, however, he favoured his eldest son, Aurang zeb made him prisoner in 1658, and
kept him under honourable restraint in the citadel of Agra until his death in 1666.
Shortly afterwards Aurang zeb succeeded in seizing the person of his eldest brother ;
and Dara was condemned to death on a pretended charge of apostasy from the
Mohammedan faith (1659). Murad met the same fate in 1661 as a result of an
attempt to escape from his imprisonment. Shoja fled to Bengal, and perished in
1660 in the malarial district of Arakan, while his sons were kept prisoners until
their death in Gwalior. Thus no further rival remained to the successor of Shah
Jehan among his brothers or relations.
(£) The Early Years of Aurang zeb. — Aurang zeb (Aiming zebe) 'Alamgir I
(1658-1707) had inherited none of the great talents of Baber and Akbar, neither
their statesmanlike foresight nor their humanitarian disposition, and still less that
religious toleration which had made the people prosperous and the State powerful.
Those famous rnonarchs had been creative minds, capable of finding the right
440 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
measures to deal with every difficulty ; whereas Aurang zeb was a narrow-minded
monarch who displayed his good qualities invariably at the wrong time and the
wrong place. He was careless where he should have been severe, severe where
carelessness would have been the better policy, liberal where he should have saved,
miserly when liberality was needed, and upright only toward his co-religionists.
In war he displayed personal bravery, but he attempted to deal with great problems
of statesmanship in a petty and narrow-minded spirit. His actions were dictated,
not by love for his subjects, but by ambition, mistrust, and religious fanaticism.
No one was ever better able to conceal his true feelings ; no means were too con-
temptible or too arbitrary which could enable him to reach the goal of his ambi-
tion. His effort was to promote the one true faith of the Sunnah, and his ambition
was to be the type of a true Mohammedan monarch. To his co-religionists he
displayed a leniency which was a direct invitation to mismanagement, intrigue, and
disobedience, while his hand was heavy upon the hated Hindus who formed the
majority of his subjects. He was well read, especially in the Koran, and his private
life was marked by moderation and simplicity ; his public appearances were charac-
terised by an excess of splendour and by painful observance of every religious duty.
At the beginning of his reign the emperor seemed inclined to model his
behaviour upon the religious tolerance of his ancestor Akbar, and married his son
Mohammed Mu'azzem to the daughter of a Hindu prince. But after a short inter-
val his fanatical hostility to the alien religion made itself felt, and discord between
the emperor and his subjects was the natural result. The tax upon all saleable
articles, which was only 2|- per cent for the Mohammedans, was doubled by
Aurang zeb in the case of the Hindus ; the hated poll tax which Akbar had abol-
ished was again imposed upon the Hindus, and while preference was shown to
the Mohammedans, a double burden was laid upon the Hindus, who were also ex-
cluded from the administration and the army. In 1679 Aurang zeb pulled down
the three most sacred temples of the Hindus in Multan, Mattra, and Benares, and
erected a mosque upon the site of the temple of Krishna (Mattra). In Rajputana
alone the Brahman sanctuaries which were devastated by his fanaticism might be
counted by hundreds ; the priests were killed and the temple treasures trans-
ferred to Delhi. Especially characteristic of the emperor's madness are his
attempts to seize friendly Hindu princes and forcibly to convert them to Mo-
hammedanism ; their armed escorts were cut down to the last man, while they
themselves escaped and with their co-religionists at once became the bitter
enemies of Aurang zeb.
The Satnami, a purist Hindu sect on the left bank of the Sutlej, were the first
to revolt against such oppression — a movement that was only repressed with dif-
ficulty. Their example was followed by the Rajput tribes, and the struggle was
carried on with varying success and with such bitter cruelty that from that date
the Rajputs have displayed a deadly hatred to every later ruler of Delhi.
Aurang zeb's own son, Mohammed Akbar (the fourth prince), enraged at the
inhumanity of the imperial orders given him, joined the side of the oppressed, but
\\ us forced to flee ; he first turned to the Mahrattas, who were at war with his
father, and afterward retired to Persia, where he died in 1706.
(17) The Foundation of the Mahratta Power. — Aurang zeb had successfully led
the army of Shah Jehftn against the Mohammedan States in the Deccau, and had
***] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 441
inflicted severe losses upon Golconda and Bijapdr ; but independent rulers were
;still powerful in that district. In the meantime a third State founded upon the
basis of national religion had grown from insignificance to a power more formi-
dable and coherent than any of the surrounding States ; this was the Mahratta
(Maratta) people, a powerful tribe descended from the old Kshatriya immigrants,
inhabiting the district of Maharashtra and the country to the south ; from this
centre capable men had for many years migrated to the neighbouring Moham-
medan principalities, especially to Bijapur, where they had occupied important
positions in the administration and in the army. The head of one of these immi-
grant families, Shaj Bhonsla, had distinguished himself as a cavalry commander,
and had been rewarded by the Mohammedan Sultan of Bijapur with the military
fief of Poonah, and later with a more important district in the modern Mysore.
From his marriage with a woman of noble birth sprang the founder of the
Mahratta power, Sivaji. National and religious sentiment inspired him with
deep hatred for Mohammedanism. During his father's absence in the southern
parts of his fief the son, with the help of the troops under his command and other
Mahratta allies, seized a number of the strongest fortresses, confiscated the taxes
.and plundered the lands of his lord far beyond the boundaries of his own district ;
his father was then suspected of complicity and imprisoned by the sultan of
Bij^pur. Sivaji entered into negotiations with the powerful emperor of Delhi,
Shah Jehln, and the fear of this mighty monarch procured the release of his
father ; the son then displayed even greater insolence to Bijapur. Ultimately an
army was sent against him under Afzal Khan ; Sivaji induced the hostile com-
mander to agree to a friendly meeting before the fort of Pratapgad, where he
murdered him; the army was taken by surprise and massacred in large part.
Ultimately he secured the cession of additional territory and the right of main-
taining a standing army of fifty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry.
These events had taken place shortly before the accession of Aurang zeb. The
upstart now directed his attacks against this powerful empire. His marauding
bands advanced into the neighbourhood of Surat in 1662, and an imperial army
retreated before him in disgraceful cowardice. A new expedition succeeded in
inducing Sivaji to appear in person at the court of the powerful emperor.
Aurang zeb received the Hindu with almost contemptuous coldness, and proposed
to confine him forcibly in Delhi. However, the cunning Mahratta and his son
made good their escape, hidden in two provision-hampers. In the year 1674
Sivaji declared himself independent, assumed the title of Maharaja, and proceeded
to strike a coinage in his own name. Had Aurang zeb been a far-seeing ruler, he
could not have failed to recognise a dangerous enemy in this rising Hindu State
on the southwest, and would have entered into an alliance with the Mohammedan
States in the Deccan. However, he hoped to secure sole supremacy over all the
Mohammedans in India, and even furthered the action of the new Hindu prince
when he extorted from Bijapur one-fourth of its yearly revenue as payment in lieu of
his plundering raids, — a tax known as the Chout, which was later, under the name
of the " Mahratta " tribute, to be a source of sore vexation to the Delhi kingdom.
The far-seeing opponent of the two Mohammedan powers availed himself of his
favourable position to develop as far as possible the internal organisation of his
Hindu State. Society was organised on the pattern supplied by the old tradi-
tions ; the Brahmans, whose intellectual training and higher education had been
442 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Cha2*er ir
developed through long generations, were the born counsellors of the nation ; the
chief official posts were occupied by members of noble Brahman families, who saw
i hut the administration was properly conducted. The warriors descended from
tin* old Kshatriya immigrants formed the professional officers and the well-drilled
ami regularly paid army. The agricultural class (Kunbis) not only devoted their
energies to production, but also formed the guerilla reserve of the standing army.
All remaining handicraftsmen or merchants formed collectively the fourth class
(^Shankardachi). The State thus organised had a small standing army of cavalry
armed with lances which, when necessity arose, could be rapidly increased to
a powerful force by calling out the militia, and as rapidly be reduced to its
former dimensions. The Mahratta army was a highly mobile force, and conse-
quently far superior to the slow-moving troops of the Mogul emperor; when
these latter appeared in overwhelming strength, they found only peaceful peasants
tilling their fields; the moment the enemy divided his forces he was immediately
attacked unawares. Plundering raids and the Mahratta tribute imposed upon
neighbouring States brought in a large yearly revenue ; the booty taken in war
was in part divided among the soldiers and the militia, but the larger part had
been distributed among the small and almost impregnable mountain fortresses
which guarded the State chest and military treasuries. Thus Sivaji had at his
command a strong army ever ready for action and self-supporting, while the expen-
>ive and incapable troops of his opponent devoured the riches of the empire ; the
Mahrattas had no lack of recruits to swell their ranks, while the Mogul army
had great difficulty in maintaining its strength, though enlistment proceeded far
and wide. Such was the opponent that Aurang zeb thought he could play off
against the sultans of the Deccan ; in reality the Mahratta power, joining now one
and now another of these opponents, inflicted injury upon both and aggrandised
itself at their expense.
(0) The Fall of Aurang zeb. — In the year 1672 Sivaji surprised an imperial
army, and inflicted so severe a defeat that for a long time the Mogul troops were
forced to confine themselves to the defence of their headquarters in Aurangabad.
Revolts in the north and the northwest of the empire had made it impossible to
unite all the imperial forces for action upon the south. A favourable opportunity
seemed, however, to have arisen in 1680, when Sivaji died and was succeeded by his
son Sambaji, who was nearly his equal in energy. This was the date of the seces-
sion of Prince Akbar (p. 439). The emperor, who was by nature suspicious, now
declined to trust anybody, and placed himself at the head of his southern army
with the object of crushing his Mohammedan opponents 'Ali II of Bijapur, and
Alm'1 Hasan of Golconda, intending afterward to overthrow the Mahrattas. In
1683 he marched to the Deccan; in 1686 Bijapur was taken and Golconda fell in
the next year. The last independent Mohammedan States in the Deccan thus
disappeared.
In 1689 Sambaji and his son, who was six years of age, were captured by
Aurang z6b ; the father was killed after the most cruel tortures, and the child
kept in strict confinement. This action, however, aroused the obstinate Mahratta
race to yet more irresistible efforts. Aurang zeb was utterly defeated at Berampur,
and his youngest son, Mohammed Cambakhsh, with his commander-in-chief
Zultikar, suffered such heavy losses on the east coast that the prince was forced to
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 443
withdraw and unite his forces with his father's. Other imperial armies were
repeatedly beaten or forced to surrender ; the very forces of nature seemed to be
conspiring with the enemy ; a sudden inundation of the river Bhima cost Aurang
zeb the whole of his baggage and twelve thousand cavalry. The Mogul emperor
gathered all his forces for a final effort ; strong citadels were captured and Mah-
ratta troops scattered. But fresh fortresses were occupied, and the Mahrattas dis-
persed only to reunite at some other centre. Ultimately the queen regent, Tara
Bai, the widow of Eaja Earn, the brother of Sambaji, had recourse to desperate
measures, and devastated the whole country in order to deprive the enemy of his
supplies. At this moment the bodily powers of the old emperor gave way, and in
1707 Aurang zeb 'Alamgir I died in a fainting fit.
(t) The Later Mogul Emperors. — On the death of Aurang zeb the finances of
Delhi were in utter confusion ; the greater proportion of the revenue existed only
on paper, and had been diminished by embezzlement, by revolts, and the generally
impoverished condition of the nation, while the expenditure had risen enormously
during the long-continued war. The Hindu population, who were considered as
subjects of the second class only, were inspired with deeper hatred for the Moham-
medan dynasty. The strong foundations of the State had been shaken ; a state of
ferment existed at home, the south was threatened by the Mahratta power which
Aurang zeb's blind policy had aggrandised, and the States on the northwest beheld
the anxieties with delight. Moreover the dynasty upon the peacock throne of
Delhi had degenerated ; the power of the House of Timur had spent itself in a
short succession of brilliant rulers, and the emperors of succeeding years were but
miserable shadows of their great predecessors.
In the next twelve years no less than eight rulers succeeded one another
on the throne.1 The first, Mu'azzem Shah 'Alam Bahadur Shah I (1707-1712)
displayed much tolerance, but his strength was unequal to the task of restoring
the broken organisation. His vicious successor, Mo'izz ed-din Jihandar Shah
(1712-1713), was an utterly insignificant figure. He was succeeded by Mohammed
Farrukhsiydr (Farokhsir, 1713-1719), a weakling who surrounded himself with
foolish counsellors, and vainly attempted to curb the growing power of the nobles
by clumsy intrigues ; he was murdered in the palace. Two children were then
placed in succession upon the throne ; both succumbed to consumption, Eafi 'ed-
darajat after three months and Eafi 'ed-doula Shah Jehan II, in an even shorter
time. The rule of Eoshen-akhtar Mohammed Shah (1719-1748) was of somewhat
longer duration ; he, however, was a voluptuary who cared only for his own
1 Mohammed Muhl ed-dtn Aurang z§b (Aurungzebe) "Alamgtr I (1658-1707)
1
1. Mohammed Mu'azzem ShSh 'Alam Bahadur Mohammed 'Azim Mohammed Akbar Mohammed
Shah I (1707-12) Sha-h (1707) NSkQsiyar (1719-23) Cambakhsh (1707, 8)
1
,
1
Mohammed
Muhyt ussunnah
1
2. Mo'izz ed-din JehSndSr
ShSh (1712-13)
Mohammed 'Azim
3 MohLmme
Rafi al-kadr
(t 1712)
1
Mohammed chujaetah-
akhter JehSn ShSh
|
1
I
8., Aziz ed-diu
FarrukhsiySr ,_
4. Rafi ed-
1
1 6. Raushanachtar
Thrahfm Mohammed ShSh
ShSh Jehan III
(1759-60)
(1754-59)
|
douleh ShSh
darajSt
(mo) («i»-«)
'Ali Gflhar ShSh 'Alam II (1759-1806) ^/S£,
(1719)
7. Ahmed Shah
AV*A '1 Via- IWi. '»„ „,!_,}?„
\,+ l*OI
ilrKnv CV.AY* TT /1Qnn OT\
(1748-54, 1 1774)
1
Abu" '1 Nasr Mu 'In ed-dln Akbar ShSh II (1806-37)
BedSrbakht (1788)
Abu" '1 Mozaffar Siraj ed-din Mohammed Bahfidur Shah II (1837-57 ; t 7 Nov. 1862)
(After Stanley Lane-Poole and Ferdinand .Tusti.)
444 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
pleasure and handed over the imperial seal to his chief wife to use as she pleased.
His son Ahmed Shfth (1748-1754) was taken prisoner and blinded with his
mother; he died in 1774 Even shorter was the rule of his aged successor 'Aziz
ed-din 'Alamgir II, who was murdered by his grand vizier in 1759.
Such, during the first half-century after Aurang zeb's death, were the "wielders
of the sceptre " in Hiudostan, with the exception of a few unsuccessful candidates
for the throne, such as 'Azin Shah (1707), Cambakhsh (1707-1708), Neknsiyar
(1719-1723), and Ibrahim (1720). The royal power was in the hands of ambi-
tious viziers, of harem favourites, of flatterers and parasites who pandered to the
excesses and debauches of the rulers. Shah 'Alan Bahadur suffered greatly from
dependence upon Zulfikar, one of Aurang zgb's bravest generals during his wars in
the Deccan, and Jehfinda'r Shah was but a tool in the hands of this man ; after
the latter's accession, during a revolt of Zulfikar, he was handed over to the rebels,
who killed both him and his betrayer. The next four rulers were elevated to
the throne by the " king makers," two brothers who gave themselves out to be
descendants of the Prophet ; these were the Seiads, Hussein Ali and Abd ullah,
who murdered Farrukhsiyar, made two children emperors, and were finally sup-
pressed a year after the accession of Mohammed Shah, Hussein Ali falling under
the dagger of an emissary of the emperor, while Abd ullah was defeated with his
army ; his rank saved him from death, but he was kept in life-long imprisonment.
Henceforward the business of State was conducted by women and parasites.
Ahmed Shah and 'Alamgtr II were pure nonentities compared with their ambi-
tious, faithless, and despotic commander-in-chief and grand vizier, Ghazi ed-din,
grandson of Asaf Jah of Haidarabad.
Such were the hands that steered the ship of State, which was now tossed by
wild waves amid dangerous reefs and began to strain in all its joints. The degen-
erate bureaucracy had but one desire, — to turn the weakness of the government
to their own advantage ; taxation became extortion and robbery, while bribery and
corruption took the place of justice. Princes and vassals, generals and viziers
tore away provinces from the empire, while warlike Hindu tribes threw off the
Mohammedan yoke. Thus the Jahs in Eajputana gained their independence
(capital town, Bhartpur). Thus, too, the principality of Jaipur seceded, the
rulers of which, Jey Singh II in particular, were distinguished for their devotion
to science (astronomy); Jaipur was built as a capital in 1728, the splendid town
of Amber having been previously abandoned at the order of the above-named Jey
Singh. In Oudh the Shiite Persian Sadat founded the kingdom of Lucknow,
while a converted Brahman, Murshid Kuli Khan, formed a kingdom of Bengal,
Orissa, and Brhar; Malwa fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, and in the south
Asaf Jah seized the whole province of the Hindostan Deccan.
(*) The Sikhs. — To the many difficulties and troubles of the empire was
udilt;J the outbreak of fanatical religious wars. In the extreme northwest of
India, in the Punjab, NAnak (1469-1538), who had been under the influence of
Kablr (p. 410), preached, about 1500, a new doctrine of general peace and brotherly
love. II.- had made an attempt to obliterate the differences between Brahmanism
and Mohammedanism by representing all the points of divergence as matters of
no importance, and emphasising the immanence of the Divine Being as the one
material point. It was a pure reform, dissociated as far as possible from any
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 445
sensualism of theory or practice. All men were equal before God according to this
theory, which did not recognise divisions of caste. The adherents of Nanak, whose
numbers were at first but small, called themselves Sikhs, that is, disciples or
scholars. During the next one hundred and fifty years they organised themselves
as a federation of districts united by religious and political ties.
It was only to be expected that the denial of the authority of the Vedas should
please the Hindus as little as the refusal to accept the Koran pleased the Moham-
medans; one of the Sikh spiritual leaders (guru), Arjuni, was accused under
Jehanglrof being implicated in a revolt; he was thrown into prison in 1606 and
so cruelly tortured that he died. From this moment the character of the religious
movement entirely changed. Har Govind, the son of Arjuni, thirsting for revenge,
issued new proclamations and gave a new character to the sect in 1638; the dis-
ciples of peace now became warriors of fanatical fierceness and bold robber bands.
However, the movement would perhaps have died out if the fanatical Aurang zeb
had not executed the guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675. The hatred of the Moham-
medans immediately flamed up afresh. Govind II, the son of the murdered man,
declared himself the son of God sent by his Father to drive and extirpate evil
from the world ; warrior and Sikh were henceforth to be equivalent terms. " Ye
shall no longer be called Sikh (disciples), but Singh (lions)." Govind maintained
his ground with varying success against Aurang zeb, who was then occupied with
the Mahrattas in the south. Shah 'Alam Bahadur attempted to win over the
Sikhs by kindness; however, in 1708 Govind was murdered by a Mohammedan
Afghan, arid the anger of the Sikhs was boundless. Pillaging and murdering with
appalling cruelty all who declined to accept their faith, they advanced upon Delhi ;
they were utterly defeated by Bahadur, and forced to retire to inaccessible hid-
ing-places. The emperor, however, died suddenly at Lahore in 1712, perhaps from
poison. The sect grew powerful during the disturbances which then broke out, and
under Farrukhsiyar reoccupied a large part of the Punjab. Led by their chief
Bandah, they again advanced in 1716, marking every step in their advance by
ruthless devastations ; Lahore was captured, the governor defeated, and an imperial
army driven back. Fortune then declared against them ; they were repeatedly
beaten by the imperial troops and driven back with Bandah into one of the northern
fortresses, where they were starved out and killed. Bandah escaped, owing to the
devotion of a Hindu convert who personated his leader, and succeeded in duping
his captors for some time. But of the once formidable sect there remained only
a few scattered bands who gained a scanty livelihood in the inaccessible mountain
valleys of the Punjab.
(X) The Invasions of Hindostan by Nadir Shah and Ahmed Durrani. — At
this period a foreign power swept over Hindostan like a scourge from heaven.
The son of a Turcoman, though born in Persia, Nadir Shah (Vol. Ill, p. 384) had
begun his career as leader of a band of freebooters, and had seized the throne of
Safavite dynasty on the 20th of March, 1736. The lack of ceremony with which
the Persian ambassador was treated in Delhi gave him an excuse for invading
Hindostan in 1738. After conquering the Mogul army which had been reinforced
by the troops of Sadat (Oudh) and of Asaf Jah (Haiderabad), he marched into the
capital in 1739. Strict discipline was preserved among the troops. A report sud-
denly spread among the Hindus that the Persian king was dead ; the inhabitants
446 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter iv
then threw themselves upon the soldiers who had dispersed throughout the town
and slaughtered seven hundred. Nadir Shah attempted to restore order, but was him-
self attacked, and then commanded a general slaughter of the inhabitants. From
sunrise to sunset the town was given over to pillage, fire, and murder, thirty thou-
sand victims falling before the Persian thirst for vengeance. All the treasures and
jewels of the royal treasury, including the peacock throne (p. 438), the pride of
Delhi, were carried off, the bullion belonging to the empire, the higher officials,
and private individuals was confiscated, and heavy war indemnities were laid upon
the governors of the provinces. The sum total of the booty which Nadir carried
off from Hindostan has been estimated at £50,000,000.
Eight years later Nadir Shah was murdered (June 20, 1747); his kingdom
immediately fell into a state of disruption. In Afghanistan the power was seized
by Ahmed Khan Abdali (cf. Vol. Ill, p. 388), who styled himself Shah Durrani,
adopting as his own the name of his tribe ; he was strongly attracted by the rich
booty which Nadir had carried off from Hindostan. In six marauding raids be-
tween the years 1747 and 1761 he devastated the unhappy land and its capital.
The massacre of Mattra, the sacred town of Krishna, which took place during the
third invasion of Ahmed Shah, was a terrible repetition of Nadir's massacre at
Delhi ; during a festival of the inhabitants a detachment of Ahmed's army attacked
the throng of harmless pilgrims in the defenceless town and slaughtered them by
thousands.
(p) The Mahratta Kingdom at the Height of its Power. — In less than a century
after the death of Shah Jeha"n, the once powerful Mogul kingdom had sunk to
the lowest point of misery and weakness ; it would undoubtedly have disappeared
altogether had not the English become predominant in India about 1760 ; it was
wholly to their interest to preserve at any rate a semblance of the empire. Mean-
while, important events had taken place in the south during the first half of the
eighteenth century. Saho, the grandson of the Mahratta prince Sivaji (p. 441)
was released shortly after the death of Aurang zeb ; he was — and in this respect
he became a pattern for the treatment of young Indian heirs to the throne—
wholly estranged from the national interests of the Mahrattas. He had grown up
in a harem under the influences of the Mohammedanism with which he had been
surrounded, and his thoughts and feelings were rather Mohammedan than Hindu ;
his first act as king was to make a pilgrimage to the grave of his father's murderer.
Previous to the accession of Saho the Mahratta government had been in good
hands ; when Sambaji had been captured and killed, his young son, who was also a
prisoner, had been declared king ; meanwhile, the government had been carried on
by the brother of Sambaji, Eaja Earn, and after his death by his no less capable
widow, the kingdom suffering no deterioration notwithstanding the imprisonment
of the monarch. When, however, Saho took up the power in person a change
occurred for the worse. Enervated in body and mind, he left all state business to
the care of his prudent minister, (Peshwa) Balaji Wiswanath ; and it was to the
efforts of this man that he owed the establishment of his position with reference
to the Mo.mil kingdom, though he would himself have been well content to become
a vassal of Delhi. The chief work of the Peshwa was to reduce to order the whole
urbanisation of the Mahratta state with its peculiar military basis. During the
reigns of Hussein AH and Abd ullah (p. 444) he marched upon Delhi and procured
/"*••] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 447
not only the recognition of the sovereignty of the Mahratta princes, but also the
formal right of levying upon the whole of the Deccan the Mahratta tax, one-
fourth of the whole state revenue (p. 441). Thus, under Saho the power practi-
cally fell into the hands of the Peshwa ; and when his post became recognised as
hereditary the new Brahman Mahratta dynasty of the Peshwas grew up side by
side with and rapidly overshadowed the dynasty of Sivaji.
Baji Eao (1720-1740), the son of Balaji WiSwanath, who united the intellect
of a Brahman with the energy of a warrior, raised the Mahratta kingdom to its
highest point. He was forced by the prince and his adherents to establish the
power of the constitution upon a territorial basis. But he saw that the strength
of his people consisted primarily in their military organisation ; his country would
be more powerful if its sphere of interest was marked by no fixed boundaries, and
if it could gradually extend its claims to the Mahratta tribute over the whole of
the fallen Mogul Empire and even further. In matters of domestic policy, the
Peshwa conducted state business entirely upon his own responsibility, without
consulting the prince, who had become a merely nominal ruler. A refusal to pay
the Mahratta tribute, and the murder of the Mahratta general, Pilaji Gaekwar, gave
Baji Eao the opportunity of subjugating Gujerat. In 1733 he captured the pro-
vince of Malwa, and in the negotiations with Delhi he secured not only all the
country south of the Chambal (see the map facing p. 430), but also gained the ces-
sion of the three most sacred towns of the Hindus : Mattra, Allahabad, and Benares.
When the Mogul emperor raised objections, Baji Eao advanced to the walls of
Delhi in 1737 ; at the beginning of 1733 he forced Asaf Jah of Haidarabad, the
plenipotentiary of the Grand Mogul, to cede all tha country south of the Chambal.
However, before the agreement could be confirmed by Mohammed Shah, the de-
vastating invasion of Nadir Shah burst upon the country (p. 445), and even the
Mahrattas shrank back in dismay. It was not until after the death of Baji Eao
(1740) that his successor, Balaji, the third Peshwa, secured the formal completion
by Delhi in 1743 of the contract proposed in 1738.
About the same period (1741-1743) the Mahrattas repeatedly advanced north-
eastward against Bengal, the last of these movements being under the leadership
of Eaghuji Bhonsla ; from this district they extorted the Mahratta tax and the
cession of a part of Orissa (Kattak) in 1743. Called in by Delhi to bring help
against the revolted Eohillas in Eohilkand, they completed the subjugation of this
tribe and were rewarded with new concessions as to tribute ; after the third inva-
sion of the Afghan Ahmed Shah, they penetrated to the northwest corner of India,
captured Lahore, and drove the scanty Afghan garrison out of the Punjab. They
had now reached the zenith of their power ; wherever the Mogul kingdom had
exercised dominion during the period of its prosperity, the Mahrattas now inter-
posed upon all possible occasions ; though not the recognised dominant power, they
exacted their tribute almost everywhere. However, they met their match in
Ahmed Shah. The Mahratta general, Sindia, was defeated, and two-thirds of his
troops slain, while the army of the general Holkar, who succeeded him, was shat-
tered. A new and greater army advanced against the Afghans under the cousin
of the Peshwa. The decisive battle was fought on the 6th of January, 1761, at
Panipat (p. 429) ; the Mahrattas were utterly defeated, two hundred thousand fall-
ing in the battle or in flight, including the general, a son of the Peshwa, and a
number of important leaders.
448 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter iv
(v) The Transformation of the Mahratta State into a Loose Confederacy. — The
Peshwa survived this disaster but a short time. The Mahrattas were obliged to
withdraw from Hindostan, and never again did the Peshwas recover their former
importance ; the Mahratta kingdom was now transformed into a loosely united
confederacy. The later successes of the people were gained by individual and
almost independent Mahratta princes with the help of European officers and sol-
diers. The policy of Baji Rao had exactly suited the nature of the Mahratta
state ; the position of the prince had sunk to unimportance, and the Peshwa had
been raised to the highest point. At the same time, however, individual com-
manders had tended to become more and more independent. The principle of
rewarding the chief general with the Mahratta tax levied from a rich province,
and thus enabling him to keep on foot a considerable body of troops, proved
utterly destructive of the unity of the State ; these commanders ultimately be-
came provincial lords supported by the troops under their command. The in-
dependence thus acquired was also favoured by internal dissensions within the
nominally ruling family and political discord with Haidarabad, Delhi, Bengal, etc.
Under the third Peshwa, Balaji (1740-1761), this process of disruption had
made rapid strides, and the landed nobility which had hitherto been purposely
kept in the background now reasserted itself to the detriment of the body politic.
The king's power had decreased so much under the influence of the Peshwa, that
his influence was gradually confined to the provinces of Satara and Kholapur ; so
also the actual power of the Peshwa ultimately coincided with the province of
Poonah. Various Mahratta princes appear for the first time under Baji Rao, whose
ancestors had previously held for the most part wholly subordinate positions ; they
now formed a confederacy, at the head of which the Peshwa was barely tolerated.
About 1738 Eaghuji Bhonsla, who had led the invasions of Bengal and Orissa,
was recognised as the opponent of the Peshwa, and attained almost complete inde-
pendence in the Province of Nagpur (nearly corresponding to the modern Central
Provinces) until his death in 1755. The general Sindia who, though of good fam-
ily, had once filled a menial position under Baji Rao, and Rao Holkar, who was
originally a shepherd, became lords of the two principalities of Indore and Gwalior,
formed from the new won province of Malwa. On the northwest the Gaekwar
became chief of the province of Baroda. Thus the once powerful Mahratta king-
dom had been broken into five great and several smaller principalities under the
purely nominal supremacy of the Peshwa.
(£) The Kingdom of the Nizam. — On the other hand, the former Mogul prov-
ince of Deccan, to gain which Aurang zeb had sacrificed the welfare of his kingdom
(|>. 442), gradually rose to an independent State of considerable importance. In
the year 1713, Chin Kilikh Khan, better known by his earlier title of Asaf Jah,
the sou of a Turkoman general in the Mogul army, in which he had himself been
an officer, was sent to the Deccan as Nizam ul mulk (governor), but was speedily
recalled by the jealous Seiads (p. 427). On his own responsibility he then turned
to his former province, where he had maintained good relations with the Moham-
iiHMluns and Mahrattas. He defeated two armies which were sent out against him,
and this success was speedily followed by the deaths of Hussein and Abd ullah
(]>. 444). Recalled to Delhi as grand vizier by FarrukhsiyaT, he found the impe-
rial court and the whole body politic in a hopeless condition of degeneracy, by
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 449
which he was the more impressed as his capacities had been trained in the stern
school of Aurang zeb, and he immediately resigned his high position. Asaf Jah
was dismissed by FarrukhsiyaT, with every mark of consideration and respect, but
he was preceded by mounted messengers to Mobariz, who had taken his place as
governor in the Deccan, with orders to depose the viceroy upon his return. This
machination failed utterly. Mobariz was defeated in 1724, and Asaf Jah sent his
head to Delhi with all good wishes for the rapid suppression of the "revolt."
To preserve some show of dependence, he repeatedly sent presents to the cap-
ital, but in reality his independence was complete. He was able to maintain his
position against the Mahrattas ; the chout (tribute) could not be refused, but he
lightened the burden of this tribute by despatching his own officials to collect it,
and transmit it personally to the Mahrattas. While the Mogul kingdom was hur-
rying ever more rapidly to its fall, this province rose to considerable importance
and prosperity under Asaf Jah ; a firm administration secured the maintenance of
peace and order; agriculture, manufactures, and trade flourished and prosperity
advanced. When the Mahrattas made their advance, Mohammed Shah appointed
the capable Nizam as dictator in 1737; however, the weakness of the empire was-
so great that even Asaf Jah was unable to bring help either against the Mahrattas-
or against Nadir Shah. In 1741 he returned to his own country. On his death
in 1748, at the age of sixty-seven, he left behind to his dynasty a flourishing king-
dom of the size of Spain, together with the supremacy of the smaller states in the
south of India.
In the east, the Carnatic, that is to say, the lowland beneath the precipices of
the ghats, formed one of the states under the supremacy of the Niza"m, and was
governed by the Nuwab (Nabob) of Arcot.1 The smaller principality of Tanjore
to the south of Arcot was governed by a descendant of Sivaji, and to the northwest
of this district, Mysore began to develop to an independent state (see the map
facing p. 430). To these must be added a number of petty principalities, for the
most part feudal holdings dating from the period of the kingdom of Bijayanagar
(p. 428), or independent creations of adventurous Paligars or Nayaks, who estab-
lished themselves in some mountain fortress and extended their influence over the
surrounding district.
C. THE OPENING OF INDIA BY EUROPEANS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR
ECONOMIC SUPREMACY (1498-1858)
(«) The Discovery of the Maritime Passage to India from West to East, and the
consequent Commercial Enterprises of European States (1498-1740). — Between
India and the western civilizations of the old world commercial relations had sub-
sisted for thousands of years, intercourse being carried on through the medium of
the Semitic races, the Arabs in the Indian Ocean, and the Phoenicians in the
Mediterranean. After the fall of Carthage (146 B. c.) Eome gradually became
supreme over the western world, and her wealth and prosperity brought an increas-
ing desire for the possession of India's products, its precious stones and pearls, and
above all, its spices, which had become indispensable. Consequently, a great
impetus was given to trade with that distant country, and the commerce thus
1 Nawwab or Nuwab, whence the incorrect form Nabob, is properly a plural noun, the plural of the
Arabic Naib or "governor."
VOL. 11 — 29
450 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
developed suffered but a temporary check after the fall of Rome ; to this trade the
small coast republics of Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice (Vol. VII, p. 4) owe their
strength and prosperity.
However, the narrow Isthmus of Suez proved an impassable barrier to direct
trade. The question arose as to how this obstacle could be circumvented, and how
the merchant could himself gather that profit which the Arab acquired as middle-
man ; such questions constantly presented themselves to the enterprising spirits of
that age. The journeys of Marco Polo were an attempt to find a trade route to the
rich and mysterious countries of the East, and though this explorer produced no
tangible result, his accounts of the riches to be found in those regions heightened
the desire to find direct maritime communication with the East.
(a) The Portuguese in India. — The Portuguese under Henry the Navigator
(1394-1460 ; cf. Vol. IV, p. 539) were the first to solve the problem of the cir-
cumnavigation of Africa. Step by step they advanced southward along the west
coast of Africa, and in 1487 Bartolomeo Diaz succeeded in sighting Cabo Tormen-
toso, the Tempestuous Cape. These efforts were then overshadowed by the exploits
of Columbus ; with unexampled boldness he attempted to find a direct route to
India by striking straight across the Atlantic instead of following the coast (Vol. I,
p. 349) ; thus on the 12th of October, 1492, he discovered a new world which he
imagined to be the continent of India. In view of this discovery the greater
honour is due to the Portuguese for their long and unwearied pursuit of the eastern
route, by which they ultimately reached their goal; at the end of 1497 Vasco da
Gama (Vol. Ill, p. 484) rounded the dreaded Cabo Tormentoso, henceforward called
the Cape of Good Hope, and on the 20th of May, 1498, his little fleet cast anchor
in the roadstead of Calicut. Thus the Portuguese were the first to advance from
Europe to India by the maritime route, and for more than a century they held the
monopoly of trade with the rich coasts of Southern and Eastern Asia.
Vasco da Gama after a stay of six months returned with the following letter
from the Zamorin (ruler) of Calicut to the king of Portugal : " Vasco da Gama, a
nobleman of your court, has visited my kingdom to my great joy ; herein there is
great wealth of cinnamon, spices, ginger, pepper, and precious stones. What I
desire from your country is gold, silver, coral, and red cloth." The successful
return of the bold seafarer roused a storm of enthusiasm and hope in his native
land. Every year fresh enterprises were fitted out ; in 1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral
made a second expedition to India, discovering the coast of Brazil in the course of
his journey ; in 1501 Joao da Nova made a third, while a fourth expedition was
conducted by Vasco in 1502, and a fifth in 1503 by Francisco d'Albuquerque, a
cousin of Alfonso the Great. With every expedition the relations of Portugal with
India were further extended, and in the " Division of the World " by Pope Alex-
ander VI in 1493-1494, Portugal was already styled " Lord of maritime, commerce,
conquest, and trade with Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India," that is, with all the
countries of Southern Asia. In 1505 the number of the factories that had been
settled had become so important that Francisco d'Almeida was sent out to India
as the first governor and viceroy.
The struggle with the Arabs for predominance in the Indian Ocean had begun
to rage upon the very first appearance of the Portuguese within the boundaries of
Asia; at the same time the haughty behaviour, the avarice, and the inconsiderate
**•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 451
cruelty of the Europeans brought them into serious collision with the territorial
princes on the Malabar coast, who were by no means united among themselves.
The Portuguese often suffered heavy defeats and great losses of men ; however,
thanks to the superiority of their ships, their armies, and tactics, they gradually
gained ground. In 1509 Almeida destroyed an Egypto-Arabian fleet off the
heights of Din. However, Portugal owed her supremacy in the Indian waters to
the next governor, Affonso d'Albuquerque (1509-1515) ; after capturing Socotra
and Ormuz in 1507, positions which were soon lost again, he acquired Goa in 1510,
Malacca in 1511, and regained Ormuz in 1515. Portugal thus had firm bases for
her operations both in the east and west ; in Goa she possessed a safe harbour
accessible at all seasons of the year, and also a position which became the centre of
her Asiatic power, and grew with wonderful rapidity to prosperity. Albuquerque,
who was no less great as a man than as a warrior, died on the 16th of December,
1515, in the roadstead before the capital of the new Portuguese possessions ; his
country rewarded his exploits with suspicion and detraction, whereas the natives
long after his death made pilgrimages to his grave and prayed his spirit to protect
them from the cruel oppression of his successors.
The power of the Arabs was broken, their fleets were destroyed and their trade
shattered ; consequently the successors of the great Albuquerque found an easier
task before them. In 1515 Soarez established himself in Ceylon; in 1518 trade
was opened with Bengal, and in 1543 Salsette (near Bombay) and Baroda were
ceded to the Europeans. Sixty years after their first appearance in India the Por-
tuguese were in actual possession of that territory which the papal division had
assigned to them. Their influence extended from Abyssinia to China (p. 102),
where Macao had been in their hands since 1557, and to Japan (p. 24) which had
given them permission to trade. In Arabia they were in alliance with several
chiefs and were the dominant power in the Eed Sea and in the Persian Gulf. The
eastern and western coasts of India were surrounded by a girdle of their fortified
trading stations extending from Cape Eames to the Bay of Bengal ; their flag waved
over Malacca ; they were the sole recipients of the valuable products of Ceylon,
Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas.
The first glow of enthusiasm brought the best spirits of the age to share in the
attractive enterprises in the far East, and the flower of the Portuguese nobility and
the people now emigrated ; they had learned bravery and endurance in their long
struggle with the Moors, which, however, had also made them intolerant, cruel,
and avaricious. Under such capable leaders as Vasco da Gama, Almeida, and
Albuquerque, troops of this nature gained great successes ; they did not, however,
win the good-will of the natives and their trade prospered only under the protection
of the sword. The best of the Portuguese were killed off by the murderous climate
and the incessant struggle with the natives ; the heroes were succeeded by men
like Soarez, Sequeira, Menezes, Lopo Vaz, etc., who, in place of the brave and
honourable soldiery of former times commanded the offscourings of the country ;
as early as 1538 it had been necessary to open the prisons in order to provide the
Governor Garcia de Noronha with the necessary contingents of troops. The lead-
ers and soldiers rivalled one another in rapacity and inhumanity, and no form of
cruelty can be mentioned with which the name of Portugal was not then tarnished.
Such action forced the territorial princes to unite for their common defence ; in
1567 the. Portuguese- were. opposed by an alliance of all the princes of the west
452 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter ir
coast, and in 1578 it became necessary to suppress general revolts on the Malabar
coast, in Ceylon, and in Amboina. Such conflicts were naturally not calculated to
promote commercial success.
As the military character of the Portuguese expeditions had changed, so also
did their religious successes undergo a transformation. After the first exploring
journey of Vasco da Gama, Cabral had taken out monks to preach the gospel to the
Indian heathen ; the greatest of these, the apostle of Christianity to the Malabar
coast, was Francis Xavier (p. 24 ad fin.) ; his diplomatic, humble, even timid,
methods of action brought him many converts, and under Gabriel de Sa the Jesuits
gained great influence. But shortly after Xavier's death (Dec. 2, 1552) the
gloomy Dominicans brought into the country the Inquisition with its blighting
influence upon all intellectual freedom. As long as every form of belief which
differed from papal orthodoxy was persecuted, so long did a heavy weight of
oppression lie upon the country.
These evils were further aggravated by the lack of foresight displayed in the
commercial policy of the Portuguese. Only once (in 1731), when Portugal had al-
ready lost almost all of her Indian possessions, was a commercial company founded
upon the model employed by more prudent states ; but only once did the king allow
the company to send a ship to Surat and to the coast of Coromandel. With this
exception, Portuguese commerce with India remained the exclusive monopoly of
the crown, which used the most pettifogging devices to protect its privilege of
exporting Indian products, in order to raise the prices of them at home to an enor-
mous height. The amount of cinnamon to be placed upon the market for any one
year was prearranged, and any excess that might be imported was burnt, in order
to maintain prices at their appointed height. At first Portugal made very large
profits ; while the splendour of Venice rapidly faded, Lisbon became the centre of
almost the whole of the Asiatic trade in the sixteenth century, and the ships of
every European state came up the Tagus to purchase these costly wares. The
profits thus acquired proved, however, of little permanent benefit to the country
(cf. Vol. IV, pp. 540 and 547) ; the crown grew rich, as did certain privileged
families and most of the churches and monasteries, while the people were impov-
erished. As the Portuguese made enemies in India, the profits of their undertak-
ings rapidly diminished and were eaten up by the necessity of providing armed
contingents.
It was peculiarly unfortunate that in the year 1580 Portugal was united with
Spain under Philip II ; his attention was rather concentrated upon the goal of
America and upon the religious quarrels in Europe than upon the affairs of the
far East. The bigoted monarch exhausted the strength of the Iberian peninsula
in disastrous undertakings against the Protestant English and Dutch. In 1588
the proud Armada perished in British waters (Vol. IV, p. 546) ; yet more disastrous
for Portugal was Philip's short-sighted resolve to exclude the Dutch from trade in
Lisbon, inasmuch as they had formerly been the carriers of the retail trade be-
tween Portugal and the northern countries of Europe ; this regulation obliged the
enterprising spirit of the Dutch to enter into direct relations with the countries
which produced these much desired wares.
(#) The Dutch in India. — At first the Dutch hoped to find a new route by
they would avoid meeting the Portuguese, and this was to be a passage to-
India
<•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 453
the northeast. Willem Barends(zon) in 1594-1596 led three expeditions to the
Polar Sea, and gained lasting renown as the discoverer of Novaya Zemlya (Nova
Zemblia) ; otherwise the attempt led to no result, and cost him his life (June
20, 1597). Meanwhile, however, the Dutch had been directed to the Cape by
their own countrymen. Jan Huygen van Linschoten, who had been in the service
of the archbishop of Goa for thirteen years, published the account of his travels
and his maps at the end of the sixteenth century. A still stronger influence was
exerted by Cornells de Houtman (Vol. VII, p. 88) upon his countrymen. While
confined in a debtors' prison at Lisbon he had gained accurate information upon
the secret of the Portuguese route round the Cape. Liberated by the voluntary
contributions of rich Dutchmen (1594), he induced his patrons to send a Dutch
expedition to India under his leadership. In the year 1595 he sailed out of the
Texel, reached Sumatra and Java after seventeen months, and returned to Holland
in 1598. The commercial success of the enterprise immediately brought about the
formation of several commercial companies. Houtman led out a new expedition
in person in 1599, which captured the Mauritius from the Portuguese in 1600 ; he
himself was killed during the voyage and lost four ships. The remaining four,
however, brought back a rich cargo.
In 1602 the different trading companies were incorporated into the Dutch East
India Company. It was now possible to proceed with more energy against the
previous masters of the East India trade, whose maritime incapacity soon became
plainly obvious. In 1603 a strong Dutch fleet made an unsuccessful attempt to
expel the Portuguese from the coast of Mozambique and from Goa : however, iii
the following years settlements were made upon districts which had previously
been in the exclusive possession of the Portuguese, namely, on the coast between
Mecca and China, and also on Java and Sumatra. In 1612 the Dutch established
themselves in Ceylon and Timor, and in 1614 on the coast of Coromandel (Masuli-
patam) and Siam; in 1619, after a sharp struggle with the English, they secured
the sovereignty of part of Java. Shortly afterwards they made an attempt to
secure the sole supremacy of the valuable Spice Islands. In 1622 the English
merchants in Amboina were accused, on the evidence of a Japanese soldier, of a
•conspiracy to surprise the fort of the local Dutch settlement. They were put to
the torture until they confessed whatever was required of them ; and ten among
them were then beheaded without further proof. In spite of this outrage all seri-
ous rivalry for the possession of the Moluccas was avoided for a long period;
Amboina became the central point of the Dutch East India trade, and from that
base of operations the Portuguese were gradually expelled from such settlements
as remained to them. The Dutch first advanced into Japan, where they gained
the sole privilege of trade, and where, under certain limitations (p. 29), they main-
tained their ground for more than two centuries ; in 1635 they deprived the Portu-
guese of Formosa, and of Malacca in 1640. Jaffna (see the map, p. 430), the
last Portuguese fortress in Ceylon, fell into their hands in 1658. In 1664 Goa
was almost the only town left to the Portuguese ; Dutch forts and factories now
occupied the coasts which had formerly been their exclusive holding. The stages
of Dutch progress are marked by their occupation of the Cape, and of Mauritius,
which was so-called after their Governor Moritz of Orange. In Persia they had
two settlements, and the same number also in Gujerat; on the Malabar coast they
had four, on the Coromandel coast three, in Orissa and Bengal five, and in Ceylon
454 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
six. Similarly the coasts of East Asia, as far as Japan and the Moluccas, were
dotted with their fortified stations.
(7) The Commercial Undertakings of oilier European States. — The extension
of Dutch power in the Old World was accompanied by a parallel rise in pros-
perity in the New World (VoL VII, p. 89), and the Dutch became a dominant
commercial and maritime power ; then* commercial marine included four-fifths of
all the trading ships of Europe, and their trade was five times greater than that of
England. The latter country was therefore obliged to summon up all its power
if it was not to be left behind in the race for prosperity. The Navigation Acts
of 1651 and 1660 (see VoL VII, p. 98), which excluded the middleman from
English colonial trade, dealt a successful blow at the power of Holland. The
consequence was a bitter struggle ; the two sea powers measured their strength in
tin1 i hive wars which took place in the years 1652-1654, 1664-1667, and 1672-
1674. England proved the stronger, and Holland began irrevocably to decline ;
in consequence it was impossible any longer to insist upon the complete exclusion
of all other commercial rivals from East Asia.
At the outset of the seventeenth century some states, roused by the success of
the first Dutch undertakings in Asia, had followed the example of Holland. The
foundation of smaller Dutch trading companies was followed on the 31st of
December, 1600, by the foundation of the English East India Company (Vol. VII,
p. 95) ; in 1604 a French company was founded, as was a Danish company in
Copenhagen on the 17th of March, 1616. The Danish company lost one of their
ships off the coast of Tanjore. Almost the whole of the crew were murdered by
the natives ; the captain alone succeeded in escaping to the court of the raja of
Taujore, where he was hospitably received, and allowed to found a settlement in
Tranquebar on the 19th of November, 1620. However, neither this settlement nor
that which was made in the same year in Serampur on the Hugli (in Bengal) at-
tained any political or commercial importance ; the jealousy of earlier companies
in the same locality excluded the newcomers from all business. These settle-
ments, however, attained, as against the Dutch and the English, the fame of intro-
ducing the first Protestant mission into India in 1705 (cf. the explanation to
the plate, p. 358 of Vol. VII). After a long period of gradual decay Tranquebar
quietly surrendered to the English at the beginning of the nineteenth century ; in
the Peace of Vienna it was restored to the Danes, who sold it to the English in
1845, together with Serampur, for £125,000. The Danish mission was transferred
to the Evangelical-Lutheran mission in Leipsic in 1847.
During the seventeenth century Germany, torn by the horrors of the Thirty
Ye;irs' \Y;ir and reduced to the extremity of weakness upon its conclusion, was
unable to entertain any projects of enterprises beyond the seas. It was not until
17i!:'> that the Imperial East India Company was founded in Osteud and given
special privileges by Charles VI. In Coblon, near Madras, and in Banhipur, on the
Hu^li, two imjterial German settlements rose to rapid prosperity and became a
source of anxiety to their neighbours. Prince Eugene brought forward a proposal
to found a German fleet, and to make Ostend and Trieste the two principal har-
I'ours of the empire. However, at the request of the sea powers the emperor
withdrew for a period of seven years the privileges granted to the East India Trad-
ing Company at Ostend in 1727, a measure which immediately destroyed the
/«*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 455
vitality of the undertaking. Further the Mohammedans in the north and south
had been stirred up against the two fortified factories by rival traders. Banhipur
was besieged in form, and after a heroic defence against overwhelming numbers,
the garrison, which had been reduced to fourteen men, was forced to embark for
Europe. In 1784 the Ostend India Company ended its existence in bankruptcy.
Upon the withdrawal of the privileges granted to the Ostend company the
officials were left without means of subsistence ; the Swede Heiurich von Kb'nig
(1686-1736) attempted to avail himself of their experience in commercial matters.
However, the Swedish company, which was founded in 1731 and received a royal
patent, became extinct after a short and troubled existence.
Frederick the Great of Prussia also turned his eyes toward the far East. He
was anxious to make a great harbour and commercial centre at Emden, the capital
of East Friesland, which he had gained in 1744; he therefore did his best to
further the aims of the Asiatic Company which was founded in that town in 1750 ;
the company sent six ships at intervals to China, but the profits were so small that
it collapsed in three years. On the other hand, the Bengal Company, the founda-
tion of which was inspired by the king himself, had been forced to struggle with the
hostility of those European settlements which had long previously existed upon the
Hugli. When their ships appeared before the Ganges Delta, every Dutch, French,
and English pilot declined to give them any assistance upon their entry into the
dangerous and difficult passage of the Hugli. However, the ships made their way
up the river and, with the help of bribes bestowed upon the officials of the English
Company, a vigorous secret trade was begun between the English and German
officials ; the latter had neither the experience nor the adroitness of the English,
and came worst out of every bargain. The necessities of diplomacy which were
forced upon Frederick the Great during the height of his struggle with Austria
soon led to the dissolution of the Bengal Trading Company.
(8) The First English Settlements. — The first Englishman who visited Indian
waters with a fleet was Francis Drake. During his voyage round the world in
1578 he touched at the island of Ternate in the Moluccas, and gained a promise
from the native chief that all the spice products of the island should be sold to the
English. Drake did not touch the coast of India ; the first to enter that land was
the Catholic clergyman, Thomas Stephens, who arrived at Goa in 1579 in a Portu-
guese ship, and then became rector of the Jesuit college in Salsette. His letters
excited some attention in England and induced three merchants, Ealph Fitch,
J. Newberry, and Leedes, to travel to India overland by way of Tripoli and Ormuz.
After many difficulties Fitch reached Ceylon, Bengal, and Farther India, and re-
turned home as he had come, while Newberry set up as a merchant in Goa, and
Leedes entered the service of the Grand Mogul.
After the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the greater English
merchants sent private expeditions to East Indian waters which met with com-
plete failure. It was not until the Dutch had proved more successful and had
been so short-sighted as to raise the price of pepper, in 1599, to more than double
the usual rate (from 3s. to 6s. and 8s.), that the first English East India Trading
Company was formed in England, indirectly by the influence of Thomas Cavendish
and Drake ( " The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the
East Indies;" cf. above, p. 454). Queen Elizabeth granted, December 31, 1600,
456 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
this company the privilege of free trade with East India, Africa, and Asia, and
gave it the right of making laws and exacting penalties in so far as these regu-
lations did not conflict with the laws of the realm of England, together with
exemption from taxation upon all exports. The charter of the company was
issued only for a period of fifteen years, but contained a clause providing for its
renewal "in the event of the undertaking proving advantageous to England;" and
the queen recommended the expedition to the good-will of all rulers and peoples
whose lands it might visit. As first founded its capital amounted to £72,000, in
one hundred and twenty-five shares. For the moment, every voyage was an expe-
dition in itself ; the necessary money was provided and the profits were then
shared, these amounting to more than one hundred per cent upon one expedition
alone, though a change took place in 1612 when the capital of the company was
raised to £400,000. Before that date the undertakings led by James Lancaster,
Henry Middleton, and others had been little more than piratical raids upon
Spanish and Portuguese ships. Middleton felt no pricks of conscience in station-
ing himself in 1609 at the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, seizing every ship laden
with Indian wares, and transferring these valuables to his own vessels after giving
in exchange the cargoes he had brought. Edward Michelborne, who was sent
out by private individuals in 1605, also plundered the native caravans.
On the whole, these expeditions brought back immense profits, and as in this
respect they contributed " to the welfare of England," the patent was readily re-
newed by James I in the year 1609. However, the Portuguese were predominant
throughout India, and jealously resented all attempts at interference. England was
therefore forced in 1612 to send four ships of war under Captain Best to protect
her trade. Hardly had these arrived in Surat, when they were attacked by a
numerous Portuguese fleet before the mouth of the Tapti. The Portuguese were
defeated. Thereupon Jehlngir executed a compact permitting the English to trade
throughout the Mogul Empire and extending his imperial protection to their set-
tlement in Surat ; branch factories from Surat were set up in Gogra, Ahmedabad,
Cambay, and Ajmir, and an English ambassador was sent to the imperial court in
Delhi (during the years 1615-1618; this was Sir Thomas Eoe; cf. p. 436). It
was to the favour of JehSngir that the English owed their commercial settlements
in Agra and Patna. They also established themselves in the south on the Malabar
coast, in Calicut, and the important district of Cannanore; in 1619 a large area
of land was acquired by purchase at Nellore on the Coromandel coast. The be-
haviour of the English to the native princes, especially to the rulers of the great
Mogul kingdom, was at that time modest to the point of subservience; they
appeared as peaceful traders, desirous neither of acquiring territory nor of inter-
fering in the affairs of the country, anxious only to devote themselves to trade
which was beneficial to India itself.
ShAli .Id ifin, when fleeing from his stepmother, Nur Mahal, into the lower
:es district, had summoned the Portuguese commanders on the Hugli to his
help. His request had, however, been haughtily refused, and no sooner had he re-
1 liis power than he proceeded to revenge himself; in 1631 he stormed the
fortified settlements of the Portuguese and drove them out of Bengal, while his
father's good-will toward the English was continued by himself. The emperor's
friendly bearing was, however, disturbed by the fact that the rival English company
(founded in 1635 by Sir William Courteii) piratically captured two Mogul ships,
J/ulitt
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 457
and, as the report went, tortured the crews. The older company sent an embassy
to Delhi in 1637 to recover the emperor's good-will. It so happened that one of
the princesses had been severely burnt, and the ship's doctor, Gabriel Broughton,
who was brought up from Surat, succeeded in curing her. When asked to name
his reward, he requested and obtained from the emperor that the outrage above
mentioned should produce no further consequences, and that the English Company
should be allowed to extend its business throughout Bengal. A second service of
this nature, performed by the same doctor, gained for the company the right of
founding new factories on the Hugli and in Balasore in Orissa.
These excellent relations with the Mogul Empire did not long remain unim-
paired. The insolence of the emperor's subordinates increased as the power of the
empire diminished. During the years 1664-1677, and again from 1679 to 1689,
the English settlement was hindered in its trade by the rapacity of a viceroy con-
nected with the imperial house. In January, 1686, the directors in London decided
that armed resistance was the only means of putting an end to this arbitrary and
intolerable interference. The decision was taken with reluctance, because the
policy of the company had been guided, up to this moment, by the principle that
war with the native princes was the worst possible danger, and at all costs to
be avoided. But when once a change of policy had been decided on, the war was
vigorously pursued. Ten ships, mounting from ten to seventy cannon, and carry-
ing seven companies of soldiers, about one thousand men, under the command of
Sir John Child, " the Governor-General and Admiral of India," were to attack the
Mogul kingdom on the west and on the east ; in Bengal the Indian town of Hugli
was bombarded ; on the west coast the emperor's ships carrying harmless pilgrims
to Mecca were confiscated and inland raids were made. The company made no
.attempt to stop these movements, but threw the responsibility on to the com-
mander-in-chief. Aurang zeb then gave orders to expel the English from India ;
their factories were attacked and the agents were taken prisoners ; Masulipatain,
Vizagapatam, Chatanati, and Surat were captured and Bombay was threatened.
Negotiations for peace were then begun, but the situation became even more
strained when Captain Heath was sent over with orders to continue hostilities,
and the agents, from fear of the Mogul, abandoned their posts in a body. At
last, however, the company disowned the action of their own governor-general and
admiral, who had to bear the whole of the blame ; and after making representations
of great humility and paying a fine of £150,000, they succeeded in softening the
emperor's anger. A fresh rival company again infuriated the emperor by repeated
acts of piracy upon his vessels ; he deprived the old companies of their property,
imprisoned all the English and Dutch in Surat, and blockaded Madras. Once
again excuses were made, accompanied by the payment of heavy indemnities.
The company was beset with even more serious difficulties arising from the
rivalry of its compatriots. Notwithstanding the privileges that had been granted,
individual merchants constantly sent out expeditions on their own account. More-
over the government, disregarding the monopolies which it had given to the
old company, often issued patents to new undertakings, which proceeded to exert
pressure upon the older foundation until their incorporation with it followed. The
old company was constantly obliged to pay for piracies committed by new societies.
A rival company of this nature was that founded in 1635 by Sir William Courten,
which was named Assada, from a place of settlement in Madagascar, and was in-
458 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
corporated in 1650 with the old London company. Similar instances are the Com-
pany of Merchant Adventurers, founded in 1655 and also incorporated with the
London company in 1657, and the General East Indian Trading Company, which
started with a capital of £2,000,000 and joined the London company in 1709 under
the title of " The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East
Indies." The following instance will show the nature of the rivalry then existent.
In 1703 Aurang z§b had imprisoned the officials of the old company stationed at
Surat. When the order of their release arrived, the agent of the Company of
Merchant Adventurers bribed the imperial officials with £2,700 to prolong the
imprisonment of his colleagues.
The company was also in constant difficulties with the parliament. Its patent
had been issued for a specified period of years, and its renewal could only be
brought about by pressure upon the national representatives, each of whom had his
price. The company was accused of working its officials on insufficient pay, of
lending itself to intrigue and to private trade, of neglecting to protect its Indian
settlements, etc. When such charges had procured a sufficient amount of " gratifi-
cations " for the parliamentary leaders, the patent was renewed for a certain num-
ber of years. Judicial investigation has made it plain that the expenditure in this
direction over a number of years amounted to £100,000, in which many personages
of importance shared.
However, notwithstanding these disadvantages the prosperity of the East Indian
company steadily increased. Its first settlement on the Coromandel coast was a
small agency in Masulipatan ; this was followed by a fort in Nellore in 1619, by
Palipat in 1622, by Armagaon in 1626, and by Madras (Patam) in 1639. Arma-
gaon was placed in an unfavourable position, and was abandoned in 1638 ; but
M;ulras, protected by Fort Saint George (erected by Francis Day, March, 1639),
soon became the chief centre of the company on the Coromandel coast. In 1634
Madras was separated from the presidency of Bantam in Java and became the
centre of a special presidency, the boundaries of which soon included all the settle-
ments of Bengal.
When the English first entered India, Surat was the main harbour of the Mogul
kingdom, and naturally became the centre of Anglo-Indian trade. A rapidly
growing number of agencies and factories sprang up about the town. Surat, how-
ever, was exposed to the southwest monsoon, and was unprotected against hostile
attacks both by land and sea. For these reasons Bombay proved a more favour-
able settlement ; it was provided with an excellent harbour, and the islands within
the harbour mouth were a natural refuge to the inhabitants from the attacks of the
Mahrattas. Bombay (Bom bahia, or Good Harbour) had originally been a small
Portuguese settlement. Upon the marriage of Charles II with the Portuguese
princess Catherine of Braganza, Bombay came into the possession of the English
king as part of her dowry, and in 1668 Charles ceded this uninteresting fishing
town to the company for a yearly rent of £10. After the Mahratta attack of
1670 the company determined to transfer to Bombay the presidency, the bound-
»f which embraced the whole of the west coast together with the settlements
on the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates.
The development of British trade in Bengal began at a later period than upon
astern and western sides of the Deccan. Surat remained the harbour for the
reception of that commerce which extended far into the Ganges district up to
***] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 459
Patna, situated near the beginning of the delta. Owing to their unpopularity the
Portuguese had been unable to make any great use of their settlement in the
Ganges delta, the town of Hugli, situated thirty English miles above the modern
Calcutta. When Shah Jehau drove out the Portuguese in 1631 and handed over the
settlement to the English nine years later, the trade with Bengal naturally followed
so admirable a route as this great waterway. Formerly British ships only ventured
as far as Pippli in Orissa ; now they passed up the Ganges as far as the tide would
carry them, and collected in Hugli the wares brought down from every part of the
great river system of Hindostan. After the good services rendered to the imperial
court by the physician Dr. Broughton (p. 457), the English gained the exclusive
right in 1645 of trading in Bengal, and prosperity followed rapidly. In 1681 the
settlements in Bengal and Orissa were made an independent presidency distinct
from Madras. However, in 16S6 the governor, Charnock, and all the officials of
the company were driven out of Bengal by the Mogul governor, Shaista Khan, and
were obliged to take refuge upon a swampy island at the mouth of the river. At a
later period they again advanced up stream to Chatanati, near which Fort William
was erected for their protection. On the 24th of August, 1690, they effected a
reconciliation with Aurang zeb, and permission to trade was restored to them, to-
gether with their factories. In 1700 the emperor's favourite son, 'Azim Shah,
gained them a piece of territory, where the villages of Chatanati, Govindpur, and
Kali Ghat as it is known in Akbar's memorials, became the nucleus of the rapidly
growing Calcutta. The protection afforded to the inhabitants of the British district
while the Mogul Empire was passing through its period of decay and the prospect
of rich profit rapidly attracted Indian settlers. In sixty years the three villages
had become a capital town, with a population estimated at four hundred thousand
in 1752.
(&) The Struggle of the English and French for Predominance in India,
(1740-1760). — The English were now firmly established in India, and nothing
seemed likely to disturb the rapid development of their influence. At this moment,
however, their very existence was endangered by the appearance of a dangerous
rival in the person of France. From the moment when the bitter struggle for pre-
dominance in Nearer India begins between England and France, a new period also
opens for the population of those districts which became the seat of war. The
Mohammedan age comes to an end, and the two following decades, at the end of
which the struggle had been decided in favour of the British, form the first section
of the " modern period " of East India.
As early as the sixteenth century the attention of France had been directed to
India, but in vain. When the weakness of the Portuguese became apparent there
was formed, almost simultaneously with the Dutch and English companies, a
French company under royal patronage (1604; cf. p. 455). Henry IV conferred
extensive privileges upon the company, which founded settlements in Madagascar,
but attained no great success for more than sixty years. It was not until Colbert
(Vol. VII, p. 104) interested himself in the company in 1664 that its real impor-
tance began. In 1668 the first settlements were founded in Surat and Golconda;
in 1672 San Thome', near the modern Madras, was taken from the Dutch, and the
islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were occupied as ports of call on the road to
India. In 1674 the Dutch recovered San Thome* ; but a portion of the French there
460 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
settled obtained from one of the petty princes the cession of a piece of territory on
the Corornandel coast, where Pondicherry was founded by Martin (1706). The
French were deprived of their new settlements by the Dutch, but these were re-
stored at the peace of Kyswick (1697). In 1729 the town which had been founded
by sixty Frenchmen already contained forty thousand inhabitants,
i
(a) Dupleix. — The French also entered into rivalry with the English and
Dutch in Bengal. In 1676 Chanderuagore was founded, and fortified in 1688.
But the short-sighted commerial policy of 1687 forbade the importation into France
of the most important Indian products. In 1719 the privileges granted were with-
drawn, and the company was at the point of dissolution, when its reorganisation as
a simple trailing company gave it a new lease of life and revived the prosperity
of Pondicherry. A period of great prosperity now followed between 1740 and
1750. In the year 1730 Joseph Francois Dupleix had been appointed director of
the settlement of Chandernagore ; he proved so capable a governor that ten years
later this town with one hundred and three thousand inhabitants became one of
the most important factories in Bengal. In 1742 Dupleix was promoted to the
generalship of Pondicherry, and gained so great an influence over the native princes
that in 1743, when the rumour came to the defenceless town of Pondicherry of a
war between France and England, the Nuwab of the Carnatic (p. 449) forbade all
hostilities among the Europeans in his district, at the request of Dupleix. However,
in 1746 La Bourdonnais, governor of Bourbon and Mauritius, appeared off the town
with a French fleet, and Dupleix persuaded the Nuwab to remove his prohibition
of hostilities by a promise to secure for him the possession of Madras. La Bour-
donnais first defeated an English fleet at Negapatarn, and then captured Madras,
which was unable to offer a resistance. An unusually strong monsoon and a quar-
rel with Dupleix, who was anxious to proceed to extremities against the English,
determined La Bourdonnais to return to France with his fleet. Madras was then
withheld from the Nuwab of the Carnatic, Anwar ed-din, notwithstanding the
promise of Dupleix; this ruler, therefore, marched with ten thousand men to
expel the French, who, however, repulsed his attack, though they could only
oppose him with two hundred and thirty European soldiers and seven hundred
Indians drilled in European fashion. This battle at San Thorn6 is not without
importance in the history of India, for here for the first time native troops were
employed by Europeans, — the sepoys ; J in this battle also the European troops
gained so great a reputation that henceforward the success of Europeans against
the troops of native princes was practically assured.
Dupleix made a vain attempt to drive the English out of Fort David, which
was defended by Major Stringer Lawrence ; on the other hand the English com-
mander-in-chief, Edward Boscawen, after losing one-fourth of his troops, was obliged
to retire from Pondicherry (October 18, 1748), which he had besieged for fifty days
with a strong fleet and four thousand men. Shortly afterward the war between
England and France was ended by the peace of Aix la Chapelle, by which Madras
was restored to the English.
Huplt-ix had now mnde for himself an enemy in the person of Anwar ed-din,
and his immediate object was the removal of this foe. The prince Chanda Sahib
1 From the modern Persian Si[>ahi = soldier.
'Indi
*-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 461
of Trichinopoli, the most enterprising and therefore the most popular of all the
princes of Southern India, had been made prisoner in 1741 by the Mahrattas; this
man appeared to the diplomatic Frenchman as an eminently suitable implement
for the expulsion of Anwar. Dupleix paid his ransom, and Chanda soon collected
a force of six thousand men for the purpose of attacking the Nuwab of the
Carnatic, who was hated by his own subjects. A fortunate event for Dupleix was
the death of the old Nizftm ul-mulk, which occurred at this period (p. 449). He
had named his grandson Mozaffar Jang as his successor in the Deccan; but
immediately after his death Nasir Jang, one of the five sons of the Nizam, had seized
the treasury and thereby won over the army. The legitimate successor had won
over Chanda to his side by a promise to make him ruler of the Carnatic, and troops
were now sent to him by the French under the Marquis de Bussy. Anwar ed-din
was killed at Amber on the 3d of August, 1749, and his son Mohammed All
fled to Trichinopoli. As a reward for this victory Mozaffar invested his ally
Chanda with the possession of the Carnatic, and ceded to the French eighty-one
villages in the neighbourhood of Pondicherry. Immediately afterward, however,,
he was defeated at Walathawur by his uncle NSsir Jang, supported by the English
troops under Major Lawrence, was taken prisoner and thrown into chains, while
Chanda escaped. The conqueror declared Mohammed Ali, the son of the former
Nuwab, to be ruler of the Carnatic. However, the fortune of war changed once
more with no less rapidity ; Mohammed was defeated by Dupleix at Gingen on the
4th of December, 1750, while Nasir, after losing a battle to Bussy, was killed in a
revolt. Thus Dupleix gained the rulers he had desired in the Deccan and Carnatic ;
the Frenchman received from Mozaffar, on the 15th of December, 1750, in the name
of the Grand Mogul, the title of governor of all the land between Kistna (Krishna)
and Cape Comorin. Mozaffar Jang was killed three weeks afterward by Euro-
peans. Thanks, however, to the efforts of Bussy, his place was taken by a brother
of Nasir Jang, who was no less favourable to the French. Thus the influence
of Dupleix extended over the larger part of the Deccan, and France was now at
the height of her power in India.
(/3) dive's First Appearance and Military Success. — Kobert Clive was born on
September 29, 1725. The son of a county magistrate at Styche, in Shropshire, he
went to India in 1743, where he was given the position of a writer, the duties
of which he fulfilled as little to the satisfaction of his superiors as to himself.
Upon the capitulation of Madras he was taken prisoner, escaped to Fort St. David,
and was given an ensign's commission under Major Lawrence in 1746. After the
battle of Amber, Mohammed Ali, the son of the deposed Nuwab of the Carnatic,
had fled to the strong fortress of Trichinopoli, and there offered a brave resistance
to the troops of Chanda. When Dupleix had sent a strong reinforcement of French
soldiers to support Chanda, the besieged fortress was upon the point of surrender
in 1751. Clive, who had already distinguished himself in an assault upon
Davicotta (1749), made a proposal to his commander to draw off Chanda from the
siege of Trichinopoli by advancing upon Arcot, his capital. Clive himself marched
upon Arcot with a little force of two hundred European soldiers and three hundred
sepoys, and established himself in the town on August 30, 1751. His plan was
entirely successful ; the Nuwab, with ten thousand men, abandoned Trichinopoli,
and Clive held out for seven weeks in an inadequately fortified town against the
462 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter IF
/
furious assaults of the enemy, to whom he could at last oppose only one hundred
and twenty Europeans and two hundred sepoys ; eventually Chanda retired upon
the approach of a body of Mahrattas and English reinforcements. This brilliant
exploit immediately placed Olive in the first rank of the heroes of Indian military
history ; his defence made a great impression upon the Indians, and the splendour
of the French arms was dimmed. The French were defeated by Olive at Arni ;
their force besieging Trichinopoli was obliged to surrender at discretion to the
English in June, 1752, and Chanda Sahib, who had surrendered at the same time,
was murdered by Mohammed Ali, without interference on the part of Major
Lawrence. During the next three years Olive was invalided home to England,
•which he reached in 1753, and the struggle between the English and the French
continued with varying success, until Dupleix was recalled in August, 1754, and
his ambitious schemes came to an end with the convention of October 11 and the
great concessions which France then made.
The power of the French was now broken upon the coast. In the interior,
however, the military and diplomatic skill of Bussy preserved their influence with
the NizSm. Bussy utterly defeated the Mahrattas, who attacked him with far
superior forces, and compelled them to conclude a peace; he rose superior to
dangerous intrigues and overcame the hostility of the fickle NizSm with such
success that he secured to the French the cession of the four northern Circars (in
the northern part of the Kistna plain). However, in 1758 he also was recalled on
the proposal of the count Lally-Tollendal, who was jealous of his success, and
had meanwhile been appointed governor of Pondicherry.
Hitherto the struggle between the French and the English for predominance
in India had been confined to the district of the two southern capitals; now,
however, an unexpected danger threatened the victorious British on the north.
The dynasty founded in Bengal by Murshid Kuli Khan had lasted but a short
time. In 1740 Ali Wardi secured the supremacy, and upon an incursion of the
Mahrattas allowed the English to fortify their settlements at Calcutta with a wall
and trench, the so-called " Mahrattas' ditch." He died in 1756 and was succeeded
by his grandson Surajah ed-dowlah, a passionate and fickle libertine of eighteen
years, of low origin, who hated the English and feared their growing power. He
immediately marched upon Calcutta. The English made a vain appeal for help to
the neighbouring French and Dutch settlements; the town was insufficiently
fortified, and was forced to surrender on June 20, 1756, after a defence of four
days, during which the greater portion of the inhabitants had fled down stream in
boats. Of the survivors, one hundred and forty-six men were confined for the
night in the prison which has attained a gloomy notoriety under the name of the
"Black Hole," a room a few yards square and ventilated only by two small
barred windows ; in the morning twenty-three survivors were alone able to stagger
out of the contaminated atmosphere.
(c) The Period of Extortion, 1760 to 1798. — (a) dive's Second Appearance in
/„,//„. — News of the disaster at Calcutta reached Madras in August, 1756, where
Clive had at that moment returned from England. As soon as the monsoon
permitted, he sailed in October for the Ganges delta with Admiral Watson, who
hrul been stationed at Madras, and they recovered Calcutta on January 2, 1757.
Olive was anxious to continue his operations, but any further advance was pre-
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 463
vented by the news of an outbreak of war with France, at that period the most
ill-omened tidings conceivable ; he was also obliged to consider the neighbour-
hood of Bussy, and the influence of that general upon the Nizam. A convention
which the Nuwab of Bengal concluded with the British was immediately broken.
With the object of intimidating the French, Olive stormed Chandernagore, the
French settlement on the Hugli. To cope with the overwhelming forces of Surajah
ed-dowlah he called conspiracy and treachery to his aid. The succession was
promised to a relative at the court of the Nuwab, by name Mir Jatir, on condition
that he should desert his master with his troops in the course of the expected
battle. The Bengal army had taken up a fortified position, numbering fifty thou-
sand men, at Plassey (Palashi, near Murshidabad, or Moxudabad) ; Clive delivered
his attack with a force of only two thousand nine hundred men, and, thanks to the
treachery of Mir Jafir and the cowardice of the Nuwab, gained a decisive victory
(June 23, 1757). As a reward for his treachery, Mir Jafir was created Nuwab of
Bengal, and as a matter of form his appointment was confirmed from Delhi. The
Nuwab, who had been taken prisoner, was murdered by a son of Mir Jafir. As
the price for his exalted position, the Nuwab paid to the English company and
to its officials rich " presents," amounting in all to more than £3,000,000, Clive
alone receiving £260,000. Moreover, he invested the company with the rights of
Zemindar ; that is, the right of raising taxes for the Nuwab over a district round
Calcutta of eight hundred and eighty-two square miles (the modern twenty-four
Perganas). In 1760 the amount of this tax, which rose to £30,000 yearly, was
appropriated to Clive in person by the Grand Mogul. Clive thus became in a
sense landlord to the company, which was thus raising taxes on his behalf. This
monstrous state of affairs was altered in 1765 by the action of Parliament, which
permitted Clive to retain the income for ten years, at the end of which period it
was to be paid to the company for the future.
The newly appointed Nuwab of Bengal was speedily threatened by danger from
the Hindus. 'Ali Guhar, the son of the Grand Mogul 'Alamgir II, had fled from
his father's court and been well received in Oudh and Allahabad; after the
emperor's murder in 1759, he declared himself emperor of Hindustan, and assumed
the title of Shah 'Alam II (cf. p. 443). With an army of forty thousand men, com-
posed of Afghans and Mahrattas, he marched against Mir Jafir and won a victory
over the troops of the Nuwab, which had been reinforced by British sepoys, at
Patna ; afterward, however, he was repeatedly defeated with the help of English
troops (1760), and was forced to renounce his projects of conquest in Bengal.
Meanwhile the Seven Years' War had broken out in Germany (Vol. VII,
p. 537) ; France and Russia had joined Austria against Prussia, which was now in
alliance with England. Count Lally-Tollendal (p. 462), who had been appointed
French governor in Pondicherry in 1756, though a man of high military experience
and bravery, continually made enemies by his want of tact, with the result that
his enterprises invariably ended in disaster. After Bussy had been recalled
through jealousy, Forde, who had been despatched by Clive, succeeded in taking
the northern Circars from the French ; on April 7, 1759, the English got posses-
sion of Masulipatam, the last French fortress in the Deccan.
Shortly after his arrival (April, 1758) Lally had seized the English fort of
St. David on June 1 ; he had intended to lose no time in attacking Madras, which
was in no position to make a defence, but the French admiral declined to co-
464 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapt
er
operate, and as the council in Pondicheny declined to vote the necessary supplies,
tin- attempt came to nothing; he then made a vain effort to procure the necessary
money by storming Tanjore. Ultimately he besieged Madras and breached the
walls of the town, but his own officers then declined to advance to the assault,
and the appearance of an English fleet before Madras forced the French to beat a
hasty retreat, leaving the whole of their siege train behind (February, 1759).
The Nizftm now concluded a convention with the English, and promised to take
no more Frenchmen into his service. The appearance of a strong French fleet off
Pondicherry raised some final sparks of hope ; but after a vigorous and indecisive
sea fight, the British remained in possession of the ground, and the French retired
to the Isle de France. Lally made a last effort and attacked the English port of
Wandewash ; he was, however, opposed by Colonel Eyre Coote, who had been sent
out by Clive, and defeated on January 22, 1760. Lally was besieged in Pondi-
cherry by land and sea from March, 1760, and was forced to surrender on January
16, 1761. In 1764 he returned to Paris ; there the invariably unfortunate general
was thrown into the Bastille and beheaded, to the lasting disgrace of his judges,
on May 17, 1766. His son owed much to the undaunted representations of Vol-
taire to Louis XVI, who cleared the honour of this wrongly condemned general in
a decree of May 21, 1778.
Thus the second great rival for the supremacy of India had been crushed,.
although under the " Treaty of Paris " (February 10, 1763), Pondicherry and Chan-
dernagore were restored to the French for a short period (cf. below, p. 470).
dive's activity also reduced the importance of the Dutch in India to a vanishing
point. In 1760, when the British found themselves in an embarrassing situation,
the Dutch East India Company came to a secret understanding with the treach-
erous Mir Jafir, and sent out seven large ships with troops from Java to the Hugli.
Clive, however, captured these, marched upon the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah,
and forced the Dutch to conclude a convention, in which they undertook to raise
no further fortifications, and to disband all troops, with the exception of a small
body of police. Any breach of these regulations was to be punished by their
immediate expulsion.
(y3) Mir Kasim ; Further Success on the Part of the Company (1761- 1765} ,
and Corruption of its Officials. — Clive returned to England in 1760, was created
Lord Clive of Plassey with an Irish Peerage in 1762, and became a popular hero.
However, in India the need of his strong government was everywhere felt. " He
had left no regular system of government in Bengal, but merely the tradition that
by the terror of the English name, unlimited sums of money could be extorted
from the natives." The success of his intrigues with Mir Jafir proved a bad
example for the council at Calcutta. The installation of this Nuwab had been
attended with such unexpected profits that nothing seemed easier than to renew
tin- attempt. Pressure was brought to bear upon this self-created ruler until he
abdicated. One of his relatives, Mir Kasim, was set up in his place. Besides
giving immense sums of money to individual civil and military officials, he ceded
tin- districts of Bard wan, Midnapur, and Chittagong to the company as a reward
for their services. However, the new Nuwab was an independent, ambitious, and
'••tic man. He gave his attention to the creation of an independent array,
organised and drilled upon European patterns. He showed no inclination to bow
jndia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 465
to the aggression of the English traders. It had become a generally recognised cus-
tom for the officials of the company down to the poorest clerk to supplement their
miserable pay by private enterprises of their own ; the ruler of Bengal had remitted
all taxes upon the commerce of the company in its corporate capacity, and similar
privileges were now demanded for the private trade above mentioned. The Nuwab
made complaints to the council ; these were naturally unsuccessful, and yet further
demands were made of him ; he replied by reimposing the taxes upon the company
in his own country. This action was equivalent to a declaration of war. The army
of the Nuwab, which included the remnants of the French troops, numbered fifteen
thousand men, but was defeated by the military skill of Major Tobias Adams at
Katwa, Gharia, and Udwa Nala (Kajmahal). Mir Kasim fled to Patna with one
hundred and fifty-five English prisoners, and when he was followed by the hostile
army, murdered his prisoners and retired with the remnant of his troops to Oudh
to the court of Shuja, the ruling Nuwab Wazir. The former Nuwab, Mir Jafir,
was replaced upon the throne of Bengal, and once again his installation was
accompanied by the usual stream of gifts to the company and its officials.
Meanwhile the storm of the Afghan invasion (p. 447) had burst upon the
Delhi kingdom and had utterly defeated the Mogul army at Panipat on January
6, 1761, ten days before the fall of Pondicherry. Delhi was in a state of complete
confusion ; the emperor fled to Shuja ed-Doula, the Nuwab Wazir of Oudh. Both
monarchs recognised the great danger to themselves in the rapidly growing power
of the English on the lower Ganges, and Mir Kasim, who brought with him a
considerable contingent, was well received at the court of the Nuwab Wazir. The
united armies advanced against the English at the moment when the English
sepoy troops mutinied ; the rebellion, however, was quickly and sternly suppressed,
and on October 23, 1764 (not 1761, as appears by a mistake on the map, p. 430)
the English, under Major Hector Munro at Baksar (Buxar), utterly defeated the
overwhelming forces of the allied Hindu princes. Mir Kasim died in obscurity
and misery at Delhi in 1777.
The victory of Baksar was to prove even more fruitful in consequence to the
English than that of Plassey. It brought them into direct contact with the ruler
of Hindustan, who had hitherto maintained his dignity unimpaired, though his
practical power had been reduced to nothing. In the treaties of peace the com-
pany was officially recognised as the vassal of Shah 'Alam, as feudal owner of
lower Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa ; in 1765 it received the Diwanat, that is, the
whole civil and military administration of the province. In return for this the
company was obliged to make a yearly payment of £250,000 to the Mogul, to
whom was secured the possession of the lower Duab (Allahabad and Kora).
Shuja retained his power in Oudh in return for a war indemnity amounting to
£500,000; the Nuwab of Bengal, the son of Mir Jafir, who had died in February,
1765, received as recompense for the loss of his Bengal income, £600,000 yearly
and the Nizamate, or right of criminal jurisdiction.
Notwithstanding the huge income which flowed into the coffers of the com-
pany, it was not possible to regard the further development of Indian affairs with-
out some feelings of alarm. Every branch of the administration was utterly
rotten ; from the lowest to the highest, every official was wholly possessed with
the desire of enriching himself in the shortest possible time, by any and every
means, with the object of spending the rest of his days in England as a " nabob."
VOL. II— 30
466 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
The resources of the country were drained with the most appalling rapidity;
" Enormous fortunes were rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions
of human beings were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. They had been
accustomed to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this. They found
the little finger of the company thicker than the loins of Shuja ed-Doula"
(Macaulay, Essay on Clive). The army also had been affected by the bad example
of the officials ; greed, luxury, and lack of discipline invaded its ranks.
(7) dive's last Appearance in India, and his Death. — Thus when Clive entered
Calcutta in May, 1765, as governor for the second time, he was confronted with a
heavy task. He had himself contributed to the abuses which he now desired to
check ; as an official of the company, he had acquired enormous wealth, and had
contributed to the exhaustion of the country by the extortion of enormous treasures
from its rulers. In spite of the resistance of every class of the officials, who
openly mutinied against him, he put down many abuses with a strong hand, and
checked the general corruption. Officials were firmly forbidden to accept presents,
and their private trade came to an end ; they were recompensed, though insuffi-
ciently, by a rise in salaries which was covered by the salt monopoly.
Clive was obliged to leave India in January, 1767, inconsequence of illness, and
he was never destined to see the country again. The animosity which his actions
had aroused among all Europeans in Bengal reached his native land before his
arrival home. He did not find the brilliant reception that had awaited his former
arrival. Most extraordinary rumours were in circulation concerning him. Ulti-
mately a parliamentary investigation was begun, and he was impeached, — a
process which ended in a declaration by the House of Commons that Clive had
performed " great and meritorious services to his country." None the less, Clive
remained embittered in heart ; excessive indulgence in opium undermined his
health, and in a fit of despondency he committed suicide on November 22, 1774.
(B) The First War of the English Company with Hyder Ali of Mysore. — After
Clive's departure from the scene, embarrassments in India increased apace. His first
political action had been the conclusion of peace with the Grand Mogul, and the
acquisition of an enormous territory for exploitation by the company ; European
officials were, however, lacking to carry out the administration. Trained English-
men were to be found only in the highest posts, and the administration of pro-
vincial districts was left to native officials, whose divergent theories upon
questions of right and wrong naturally resulted in the greatest difficulties ; the
higher European authorities must be responsible for any disturbance arising from
this cause, since they showed a complete inability to grasp the situation. Dis-
honesty and corruption had been for centuries the special privilege of inferior
Hindu officials, and the Europeans also reverted to their old customs of private
trade and the receipt of " presents " as soon as Clive's strong hand was removed.
The revenues of the company diminished to an alarming extent, while the
expenditure rapidly rose in consequence of military embarrassments in the south.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a native Hindu dynasty,
the Wodeyar, had been settled in the modern Mysore and from comparative
insignificance had risen to considerable power. However, during the struggle of
the British and the French the Mohammedan General Hyder Ali (born 1728) had
/.«««] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 467
expelled by means of treachery and armed force the weak ruler Chikka Krishna
Raja Wodeyar ; in 1761 he established himself at the head of the government and
with the aid of French commanders extended his new dominions at the expense of
his neighbours. In 1767 he threatened an attack upon the Nizam, who secured a
defensive alliance with the English at the price of the cession of the northern Cir-
cars (p. 463) ; hardly, however, had war broken out between the English and Hyder
Ali, than the cunning Mohammedan won over the Nizam to himself by promises
of pecuniary help. The mounted troops of Mysore drove back the British to Trino-
malai ; at this point, however, in September, Hyder's career was checked by a defeat
which forced him to withdraw his troops to the highlands. A vigorous advance
upon the west coast relieved him from the troops of Bombay and secured him in
the possession of Mangalore. For a considerable time the struggle continued with
varying success upon either side until on the 3d and 4th of April, 1769, the English
arranged a peace somewhat inglorious to themselves, upon the condition that almost
all the acquisitions made by either party should be restored.
(e) Warren Hastings. — So far from gaining any advantage from the war, the
company found its expenses considerably increased. It was impossible to extort
money, as previously, by changing the rulers of Bengal, and the larger proportion
of the profits upon the ordinary trade flowed into the pockets of the officials.
These embarrassments were further increased in 1770 by a terrible famine which
swept away one-third of the population of Bengal and reduced the profits of the
company to a vanishing point. In 1772 the company was threatened with bank-
ruptcy and could only maintain its position with the help of a considerable subsidy
from the English government. The truth was that only a fundamental reform
could produce any lasting or beneficial result. During Olive's period Warren
Hastings had been a member of the council of Calcutta from 1761 (born Dec. 6,
1732, at Churchill) ; he was distinguished for his discretion, integrity, and industry.
After several years' absence in England he was sent out in 1769 to Madras as a
member of the council ; at the present moment (1772) he was appointed head of
the council of Bengal. Owing to the previously mentioned embarrassments a
regulating act, issued in February, 1773, had fundamentally changed the whole
constitution of the Indian Trading Company, and Hastings found himself at the
head of all the company's Indian settlements. By the new constitution the presi-
dency of Bengal became of predominant importance, for the president as general
governor assumed the political guidance of the other presidencies (Madras and
Bombay). He was assisted by four councillors and had a casting vote in cases
where their opinions were equally divided ; in Calcutta, moreover, a supreme court
of justice was established in complete independence of the council.
The first general governor found himself in an extremely difficult position.
His task was to cleanse the whole Augean stable from the many malpractices
which had grown up in every branch of the administration, and everywhere his
efforts met with the strongest resistance. An even more serious obstacle was the
opposition which Hastings encountered in the council itself ; of the four members,
three were utterly opposed to his views on every administrative subject, and of
these the most vigorous was the capable but ambitious and somewhat jealous
Philip Francis (the supposed author of the " Letters of Junius," 1768-1772). The
powers and duties of the council and the supreme court of justice were ill defined
4C8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
and often conflicted, thus increasing the embarrassment of the situation. The
adroitness, energy, and perseverance displayed by Hastings ultimately conquered
these obstacles. A distinguished Brahman, Nanda Kumar (Nuncomar), who hated
the general governor, attempted to use the weakness of his position in the council
to overthrow him by the production of false evidence ; the governor, however,
brought the Brahman to trial before the supreme court on an independent charge of
forging a Hindu banker's signature. There is no doubt that Nanda Kumar was guilty
on the charge which was brought against him. But it was something more than
harsh to apply in his case the English law of forgery, which had never before been
used against a native of India. He fell a victim to the resentment of the governor
general, and his execution was a lesson to the Hindus not to meddle with the
intrigues of Hastings' English enemies. Hastings rid himself of his most furious
enemy in the council, Francis, by challenging him to a duel and shooting him
through the body; Francis was obliged to return definitely to England in 1780.
Henceforward Hastings had a majority in the council and was able to continue
his task of reform without further interference in that quarter. The system of
taxation was thoroughly reorganised, and Europeans were set over the administra-
tion of larger districts. The salaries of all officials were raised and they were
strictly forbidden to engage in private trade ; the administration of justice was
improved by the institution of local courts, etc. In view of the depth of the pre-
vailing corruption it was not to be expected that this process of reform could be
completed during the lifetime of one man ; but those administrative principles
which are in force at the present day were then laid down and the ground was
thus cleared for a course of healthier development.
Warren Hastings had been sent out to stop the abuses prevalent in the ad-
ministration, but above all to wipe out the company's deficit and enable it to
pay the highest possible dividend. The country, however, was exhausted, and
the process of reform was expensive, and brought no immediate return. However,
the governor-general, with his elastic standards of political morality and his ruth-
less perseverance, succeeded in bringing the second part of his task to a no less
brilliant conclusion. Upon a change of rulers in 1766, Olive had reduced the
yearly subsidy which the company paid to the Nuwab under the convention from
£600,000 to £400,000, and on a similar occasion in 1768 a further reduction of
£100,000 was made. Hastings reduced the subsidy by an additional £160,000.
The Nuwab was a child in his minority, from whom there was nothing to fear, and
the breach of convention implied in this action did not trouble anybody's con-
science. The original convention had been concluded only with Mir Jafir, and his
successor might well be satisfied that so much had been left to him.
The governor-general, who was never at a loss for means to accomplish his
object, found a second rich source of income in the relations of the English to the
Grand Mogul. In 1765 the two provinces of Allahabad and Kora and two and a
half millions of rupees from the revenue of Bengal had been promised to the em-
peror Shfih ' Alam. In 1765 the emperor ceded both provinces to the Mahrattas
in exchange for his former province and capital of Delhi, to which he removed in
1771. Thereupon the English not only withheld the payments due to the emperor
but sold the two provinces which did not even belong to them for hard cash to
Shuja, the Nuwab Wazir of Oudh, the excuse being that the emperor was under the
influence of the Mahrattas, who were hostile to England. There was a mixture of
India
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 469
political and pecuniary motives in this transaction. Hastings set the interests of
the company above all other considerations. But he was far from thinking that its
interests were limited to the pecuniary profit of the moment. He regarded the
territory of the company as a State, and in his dealings with the native princes he
played for political ascendency of a lasting kind. This must be borne in mind
when we criticise his policy toward the Eohillas. This tribe, living at the foot of
the Himalayas, had never come into actual conflict with the English. When Hast-
ings led troops to the Nuwab Wazir of Oudh to be employed against the Eohillas,
his enemies saw in the move nothing but a device for raising money. The fact
was, however, that the Eohillas had threatened to invade the company's territory,
and might one day put their threat into action ; and that by handing them over
to Oudh the governor-general sowed dissension between the Nuwab Wazir and the
Mahrattas, and secured the fidelity of the former in perpetuity. But there are
some other transactions in which the pecuniary motive was the chief one. After
Shuja's death in 1776 the company made a complaint against his mother and his
widow (the two Begums), to whom the ruler had left ten millions of rupees, which,
moreover, the council of Calcutta had adjudged to them on the occasion of a quarrel
with the successor, Asaf ed-Doula. They were now charged with inciting the Eaja
of Benares to revolt against the English, were imprisoned and threatened with severe
punishment until they surrendered their property. Finally, attention was paid to
the rich Eaja of Benares, Chait Sing. After he had submitted to an extraordinary
course of extortion, he was asked without the smallest excuse to provide a special
contingent of auxiliary troops. A dangerous rising of his people was suppressed,
and a more pliable raja was set up in his place. By these means the yearly
revenue of the company was raised some £200,000 sterling.
(£) The First War of the English Company with the Mahrattas ; the Second Wa't
with Mysore ; the Return of Hastings. — In 1761 Peshwa Balaji (p. 447) died in
Poonah. His son and grandson soon followed him to the grave, and failing direct
heirs to the succession, Eaghnat Eao (commonly known as Eaghuba) declared him-
self Peshwa. He was a brother of Balaji, but his succession was disputed, as a son
posthumously born of the last Peshwa was shown to exist. Accordingly, Eaghnat
turned for help to the presidency of Bombay in 1774, promising the two harbours
of Bassein and Salsette, which the presidency immediately annexed. When he
was attacked by the Mahrattas under Sindia and Holkar, he immediately fled to
Bombay and handed over the two harbours by the compact of Bassein (1775). By
the new regulations (p. 467) the presidency was no longer allowed to conduct a
foreign policy of its own. None the less, troops were sent out under Colonels
Egerton, Cockburn, and Carnac, but were so utterly defeated by Sindia in War-
gaon in 1779 that the whole army was forced to surrender. The Calcutta govern-
ment had not authorised this proceeding on the part of Bombay, but it now became
a point of honour to support the defeated party. In 1780 troops were sent west-
ward, Ahmedabad was captured, and on the 5th of August the Mahratta fortress of
Gwalior, which had been reputed impregnable, was stormed by Major Popham, who
surprised and defeated Sindia by a night attack. The convention of Saldai (1781)
freed the English for the moment from this most dangerous adversary, his pre-
dominance in the Mahratta territory being practically recognised by the agreement.
When peace was definitely concluded in 1782, the Mahrattas received Gujerat,
470 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
while the presidency of Bombay remained in possession of Bassein and Salsette,
and Raghnat renounced the position of Peshwa in return for a yearly subsidy. A
year before the defeat of Wargaon (1778), war had again broken out between Eng-
land and France, and Pondicherry was captured in October (restored to France in
the Peace of Versailles in 1783). The project was formed of taking Mahd on the
west coast (see map, p. 430) from the French, and troops were sent to Madras
through the State of Mysore without obtaining permission from the ruler. Hyder
Ali, who was smarting under earlier provocations, invaded the Carnatic with a
strong force in July, 1780, and on the 10th of December utterly defeated at
Perambokam the army of Madras, which was inferior in numbers, and feebly com-
manded by Baillie. The commander had himself hoisted the white flag. However,
when the Mohammedans advanced without precaution, they were received with a
sharp tire. In their fury at this treachery they would have cut the English to
pieces had they not been restrained by their French officers. Thomas Munroe, the
leader of the second English army, threw his guns into a tank and fled to take
shelter in Madras. The whole Carnatic was devastated by Hyder in order to
deprive the English of the means of continuing the war. As soon as the news of
these disasters reached Calcutta, Hastings concluded the war with the Mahrattas,
and sent out fresh forces under Sir Eyre Coote (p. 464), which arrived at Madras at
the end of 1780. On the 1st of July, 1781, the forces of Mysore were defeated at
Porto Novo. After long manoeuvring on either side, Coote defeated the enemy on
the 2d of June, 1782, at Chittur. In the same year (10th of December) Hyder
Ali met his death at the siege of Vellore. His son, Tippu Sahib, continued hostili-
ties with much success (April, 1783, the investment of General Matthews in
Bednar; 20th of June the victory of the French admiral Suffren, allied with
Mysore, at Cuddalore). It was not until the llth of March, 1784, that the peace
of Mangalore was concluded on the condition of a mutual restoration of conquests.
In the spring of 1785 Warren Hastings returned to England. His financial
measures met with the approbation of the company, though not of the public con-
science. Under the India bill passed by Pitt on the 18th of May, 1784, which
subjected the control of Indian affairs to a ministerial board, he was impeached
before parliament in 1787 for various breaches of justice and acts of extortion.
The trial ended in 1795 with his acquittal, after his property had been exhausted
in legal expenses. However, after the payment of his debts, the company assigned
to him a yearly pension of £4,000 for the relief of his old age. He died on the
22d of August, 1818, honoured by the king and restored to popular favour.
(77) Lord Cornwallis ; the Third War against Mysore. — The governorship of
John MacPherson was marked by no event of special importance (1785-1786) ; he
was relieved by Lord Cornwallis (1786-1793). This governor had fought unsuc-
cessfully in the North American war of independence (Vol. I, p. 472), but was
reputed to be an honourable and benevolent gentleman, and for this reason was
entrusted with the task of establishing a definite system of land taxation in Bengal.
The new governor-general immediately arranged that the land tax should be estab-
lished for ten years at a rate determined by the previous receipts. In 1793 this
arrangement was made permanent. Opinions are divided as to the value of this
reform, which fixed the revenue of Bengal from ground taxation at three millions
of pounds sterling. Local rights and customs which could not be left out of con-
/**] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 471
sideration in determining the amount of taxation were highly complicated, difficult
to understand, and widely divergent in different districts. Injustice could, there-
fore, hardly be avoided. Generally speaking, the large landed proprietor (Zemindar)
was too leniently, and the peasant (Ryot) too heavily taxed. Cornwallis intro-
duced changes which made for progress in other branches of the administration.
The officers of the company were placed on an equality with those of the military
forces, courts of criminal justice were placed exclusively under European control,
the salaries of the higher administrative officials (collectors) and of the judges in
the provinces were raised, etc.
The foreign policy of Lord Cornwallis was not free from embarrassment. Tippu
Sahib (Tipft Sultan), the new ruler of Mysore, was a passionate and revengeful
character, brave, cunning, and persevering. In 1787 he had sent an embassy to
Louis XVI, and had entered into relations with the governor of Pondicherry and
with the Afghans, the Mohammedan power on the north. In December, 1789, he
attacked the Raja of Travancore, who was in alliance with the English. Though
his attempt proved unsuccessful, he was a dangerous neighbour for the English in
Madras, and Cornwallis immediately allied himself with the Mahrattas and the
Nizam with the object of overthrowing Tippu and dividing his land among the
allies. However, the war of 1790 was carried on without energy. Lord Corn-
wallis then took the lead of the English army in person, and in 1791 a victory was
gained at Bangalore, followed by a rapid advance upon the capital of the enemy.
Cornwallis, however, was abandoned by his allies and was forced to return, leaving
his siege train behind. In 1792 he brought up reinforcements and stormed the fort
at Tippu, captured his person in Seringapatam, and dictated conditions of peace to
him on the 24th of February. Tippu was obliged to pay a war indemnity of three
million pounds and to cede half his territory, Malabar and Kurg (Coorg), to the
allies, who divided it among themselves.
(0) Sir John Shore and the Compulsory "Subsidiary Alliances." — Lord Corn-
wallis was succeeded by a colleague who had taken the largest share in the work
of reforming the taxation, and who also possessed a profound knowledge of Indian
affairs, Sir John Shore (1793-1798 ; Baron Teignmouth since 1797). His govern-
ment was chiefly remarkable for his introduction of the principle of " subsidiary
treaties " into the Indian policy of the English. Upon similar devices to regulate
the doubtful relations between the company and the States of India, see below,
pp. 481 and 488. The Nuwab Asaf ed-Doula of Oudh (p. 469) had died in 1797,
and the accession of his son, Wazir Ali, was cordially accepted by the government
in Calcutta. It was, however, soon discovered that the youthful neighbour was
not a pliable subject and might possibly be added to England's enemies. Shore
hastened to the capital of Lucknow, and discovering that Wazir Ali was not of
pure birth, transported the prince to British territory, and placed on the throne
Asafs brother, who seemed of a more pliant disposition. The price paid by this
ruler was the cession of the fortress of Allahabad, the promise to enter into polit-
ical relations with no other State, and to pay a yearly subsidy of £760,000 to
support ten thousand British soldiers, who were intended rather to suppress any
seditious movements on the part of the subsidised ally than to protect him against
his foes.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
(d) The Imperialist Idea and the Age of great Territorial Acquisition (1799-
182S). — While the English power was thus rapidly growing in India, European
politics had been shaken to their foundation. From the ruins of the French
Revolution had risen the gigantic figure of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. VIII), a
power apparently aiming at world supremacy. The English had good reason to
tremble for the safety of their foreign possessions. Bonaparte advanced upon
Egypt to subject Mohammedanism to his power (Vol. Ill, p. 713); Mauritius
(1715-1810, French) and Bourbon (1646-1810) formed excellent calling stations
on the road to India. French officers and soldiers, the remnants of the age of
Dupleix (p. 460), were to be found in the different Hindu and Mohammedan
States of India in the service of the native princes, whose armies they drilled upon
European models. Thus the troops of the NizSm had been excellently trained by
Bussy (p. 460), and at a later period by his successor, Joachim Maria Raymond.
In the service of the sultan of Mysore, and in the armies of the Mahrattas, num-
bers of Frenchmen were to be found in higher and lower positions (P. Perron, de
Boigne, etc.). The more capable were the troops entrusted to their leadership,
the more difficult was it for the English to secure their power in India from the
attacks of the enemies which surrounded it.
(a) Wellesley ; the Death of Tippu ; the Second Mahratta War. — For such a
task no more capable man could have been found than the successor of Shore,
Richard Cowley, Baron Wellesley, Earl Mornington (1798-1805), a man "of the
stuff of which conquerors are made," ambitious and not wholly unselfish, of lofty
and far-reaching projects. A warm friend of Pitt, he hated the French no less
bitterly than that statesman, and England's great enemy aroused in him the
thought of world supremacy. Thus he was the first pioneer of British imperialism.
His views were largely helped by the state of political affairs in the native
governments of India. The treaty proposed to the NizSm of Haidarabad, providing
that instead of French he should maintain English troops, and should enter into
an offensive and defensive alliance, was accepted, after some hesitation, on the
1st of September, 1798. In February, 1799, Tippu, Sahib of Mysore, was requested
to break off all connection with the French and the Mahrattas, a demand which
he met with an emphatic refusal. Moruington reinforced the English army and
assured himself of the neutrality of the Peshwa in Poonah. He then ordered his
troops to advance in two divisions from Madras upon the enemy's capital, one
division being under the command of General Stuart of Bombay, the other under
his brother Arthur (the future Duke of Wellington, 1814). On the 4th and 6th
of March the sultan was defeated, and on the 4th of May, 1799, General Harris
took Seringapatam by storm ; Tippu fell fighting bravely on the threshold of the
palace. The State of Mysore was reduced in extent upon the north and east, and
the confiscated territory divided between the allied Nizam and the presidency of
Madras. The throne thus vacant was occupied by a child of three years old, the
grandson of the last Hindu ruler of the family of Wodeyar, who had been expelled
by Hyder Ali (p. 466). Tippu's son received a yearly pension, and lived at first in
Vellore and afterwards in Calcutta.
The imperialist views of the governor-general were not satisfied by these small
successes. Between the earlier possessions on the coast of the Carnatic and the
new acquisitions in the interior were situated two principalities, the acquisition of
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 473
which was wanted to complete the presidency of Madras. The Raja of Tanjore
was deposed without ceremony (1799), and his place was given to a nominal ruler,
who promised to surrender his territory on receipt of one-fifth of the gross revenue.
In the Carnatic (Arcot) the old Nuwab, famous in dive's first exploits (p. 461),
had died in 1795. His feeble successor was unable to pay the large subsidies
demanded by the English for their assistance against the Mahrattas in Mysore,
and was therefore obliged to abdicate. The new ruler was forced to agree to
a convention in 1801 which left the English in possession of the whole of the
administration, military and civil.
The governor-general had meanwhile received the title of Marquis of Wellesley
for his services in the war with Mysore ; he now found a heavier task before him
in the north of India. Shah 'Alam had returned to Delhi from Allahabad, but had
been blinded by a Rohilla rebel. The few square miles which he possessed around
the ancient palace buildings of his ancestor, Shah Jehan, were in themselves of
far less importance than his hereditary dignity of Grand Mogul, his possession of
which was recognised or tolerated throughout India by the various claimants for
supremacy, according as these were weak or strong. The Mahratta confederacy
offered a much stronger opposition to the aims of Wellesley. In this case also the
position of the Peshwa as commander-in-chief (p. 448) had long since disappeared.
Individual princes were careful not to dissolve the confederacy, but did their best
to obtain the utmost possible independence for themselves, while the stronger
among them made continual efforts by treachery or force to secure a dominant
position at the expense of the Peshwa. The overthrow of this system must neces-
sarily begin with the destruction of the Peshwa.
After the death of Tukai Holkar in 1797 in the Mahratta State of Indore
(Holkar dynasty, p. 448), a dispute concerning the succession had broken out
between his two legitimate and one natural son, Jaswant Rao. Notwithstanding
the hostility of his neighbour, Doulet Rao Sindia (at Gwalior since 1794), the last-
named held the upper hand. His troops marched upon Poonah to secure the
co-operation of the Peshwa by force. Wellesley now had an opportunity of pro-
posing an offensive alliance to the weak Mahratta chief, and had already reinforced
his troops against the company's desires in view of these approaching complica-
tions (1801). The Peshwa, however, shuffled and prevaricated. In the following
year Wellesley repeated his proposals, but was unable to gain a hearing; the
Peshwa preferred to trust himself to Sindia than to the English. When, however,
his army was utterly defeated at Poonah by the bold Jaswant, the Peshwa in
terror took refuge within the English lines at Bombay. Proposals were again
offered to send British troops into his territory, for whose maintenance he should
cede a district of some size. The Peshwa still hesitated. Two English armies
were, however, approaching, and Wellesley threatened to raise his demands. The
hard-pressed ruler therefore signed the Convention of Bassein on the 31st of
December, 1802, in which the British were associated with him in a "defensive
alliance" which implied the renunciation of all political independence on the part
of the Peshwa.
The conclusion of this convention naturally aroused all the Mahratta princes
to the highest point of excitement, especially Doulet Rao Sindia, who had acquired
the greatest influence over the Peshwa. As things were, " the turban had been
taken from his head." Wellesley left him little time for action. The English
474 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter IV
troops advanced by forced marches and occupied Poonah in May, 1803. A similar
offer of defensive alliance was now made to Sindia and Eaghuji Bhonsla of Berar,
and was in both cases refused. The English civil officials about Sindia's person
were now withdrawn, and his adherents and his army were bribed to treachery.
At the same time two English armies advanced against the two Mahratta princes,—
one into Hindostan, under the leadership of the Indian commauder-in-chief, Gerard,
General Lake ; the other into the Mahratta States, under Major-General Arthur
Wellesley. Ahmadnagar was captured by the latter. A special division under
Colonel Murray stormed Darotsh (Broach) on the lower Narbada. On the 23d of
September, 1803, Sindia himself met with a severe defeat at Assaye (Berar). A
force now advanced upon Eaghuji Bhonsla of Berar. Kattak in Orissa was occu-
pied, the fortress of Burhanpur was captured, as also was Asir, though reputed
impregnable, and ultimately Bhonsla was himself totally defeated by Wellesley at
Argaon. After several further disasters he sued for peace at the end of 1803. In
the compact of Argaon on the 17th of December he was obliged to renounce his
right to the Mahratta tribute, to cede Orissa to the British, and Northern Berar to
the Niz£m.
Sindia, however, hesitated to conclude peace, hoping that affairs in the north
would take a more favourable turn. On the 14th of September, Lake had stormed
the Mahratta fortress of Aligarh (Alighur) which had been reinforced by the
Frenchman Perron (p. 472) ; on the llth of September the troops of Sindia under
his second military adviser, de Boigne, had been defeated before Delhi, and the
blind Shah ' Alam had been definitely freed from his dependency upon the Mah-
rattas. The English provided a monthly subsidy of ninety thousand rupees and the
revenues of the old capital with its immediate surroundings for the support of
the Mogul ; however, they themselves had seized the whole of the Duab between
the Jumna and Ganges. From Delhi, Lake marched to Agra and obliged a Mah-
ratta garrison to surrender on the 17th of October, 1803. On the 1st of November
the last Southern army of Sindia, under Ambaji, was finally defeated at Laswari.
Sindia now consented to the treaty of Surgi Arjangaon, in which he resigned all
claims to Hindostan and promised to take into his service no Europeans whose
native countries might be in a state of war with England.
Hitherto Jaswant Eao Holkar had maintained an attitude of neutrality.
Wellesley, however, demanded that he should renounce his right to the Mahratta
tax, as not being the lawful governor of Indore. Holkar declined to agree, and a
year of bitter struggle followed, in which the British suffered severe losses. General
Monson, having pursued a retreating army too hotly into Central India, was cut
off from his base, and threw away five battalions of sepoys ; Lake himself fared
little better at the siege of Bhartpur ; Jaswant secured favourable conditions on
the 10th of April, 1805. After a resumption of hostilities against the English,
Holkar was forced definitely to submit; in the treaty of Amritsar (December,
1805) the town and district of Gwalior were left in his possession, but the Cham-
bal Eiver was fixed as the boundary of his territories.
09) Sir George Barlow. — Eichard Wellesley was in advance of his times.
Even minds like Pitt, David Dundas, Canning, and Arthur Wellesley could not
observe with equanimity the growth of the British power with such rapid strides ;
at the same time the general political conscience had not been sufficiently developed
™«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 475
to see no harm in the constraint laid upon foreign princes. The dangers that
might be expected to arise from these actions were also a cause for apprehension.
The peddling spirit of the company during this period of military action was
occupied solely with the two facts of heavy expenditure and diminishing income.
Criticised on more grounds than one, Wellesley was thus recalled by the British
government. In 1805 Lord Cornwallis was again sent out to India as governor-
general with orders to keep the peace at all costs.
Ten weeks after his arrival he died (the 5th of October) and his place was
taken by a civilian, Sir George Barlow, who, from 1805 to 1807, conducted the
course of affairs and attempted to complete his appointed task of restoring peace.
Even then, however, the war with the Mahrattas had not been definitely ended,
but Lord Lake (died February 21, 1808, as viscount and governor of Plymouth)
was forbidden to undertake any further operations. The Mahratta princes were
conciliated by a policy of concession ; negotiations with Sindia reached their con-
clusion and Holkar (see p. 473) secured a peace by no means disadvantageous to
himself. Both were left free to act against the Rajputs who were friendly to the
English, and these powers were soon involved in mutual quarrels without English
interference. The government having thus declared its weakness, the Moham-
medan troops stationed at Vellore were easily induced by the sons of Tippu to
revolt; on the 10th of July, 1806, a dangerous revolt broke out, which was only
suppressed at the cost of considerable bloodshed. Barlow was shortly after re-
moved in consequence and given the post of governor in Madras.
(7) LordMinto ; the Opening of Political Relations with non- Indian States. —
Barlow's place was taken by Sir Gilbert Elliot, Baron Minto, a more vigorous and
energetic ruler, who held his post from 1807 to 1813. His immediate task was
the solution of small difficulties with robber hordes and unimportant princes, which
was easily performed. French influence had raised greater fears. With Portu-
guese permission Minto occupied Goa and the Danish colonies (Tranquebar), and
further proceeded to seize the French Asiatic Islands in order to place the maritime
route to India in English hands. A welcome pretext to interference was provided
by the growth of piracy in the Indian Ocean. Bourbon (Reunion) was easily cap-
tured on the 8th of July, 1810, as also was Mauritius (Isle de France) after a
harder struggle, the latter remaining in English hands, while the former island
was given back to France on the 2d of April, 1815, after the first Peace of Paris
of 1814 had restored Minto's other conquests to their former owners. He then
proceeded against the islands in the Malay Archipelago which the French had
taken from the Dutch ; a small English expedition seized Amboina, Celebes, and
Ceylon in 1810, while a larger force, accompanied by the governor-general in
person, occupied Java in 1811, which Napoleon had strengthened with reinforce-
ments of French troops; in 1812 the Dutch colonies in Sumatra and Borneo
suffered the same fate.
The fear of a possible French invasion also led to the opening of political rela-
tions with non-Indian States ; Lord Minto sent ambassadors to his neighbours on
the northwest. Of these the most successful was Sir Charles Metcalfe, whose
calm bearing, supported by the approach of British troops, brought about the con-
clusion of a convention with Ran jit Singh, the prince of the Sikhs (p. 445) on the
25th of August, 1809 ; it was arranged that the treaty should remain in force for
476 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
thirty years to the mutual advantage of the contracting parties and to that of the
Rajput States. On the other hand, Mountstuart Elphinstone secured little by the
treaty which he concluded at Cabul on the 17th of June, 1809 ; the compact with
the Prince of Sindh at Haidarabad on the 23d of August, 1809, led to no great
result Equally unsuccessful was Colonel John Malcolm at the court of Path 'Ali
of Persia, where he was anticipated by General Matthieu Claude de Gardane, who
had been sent out by Napoleon I in February, 1807 ; however, the development
of affairs in Europe speedily ended the prospect of a Franco-Russian alliance with
Persia; Gardane left the country on the 16th of February, 1809; and in 1814
England secured the conclusion of a convention with the shah.
Minto's predecessor, Barlow, had been forced while general governor to sup-
press a bloody revolt of the troops ; a similar and far more dangerous movement
broke out under his governorship in Madras. Quarrels between him and his
superior officers resulted in a general mutiny of the staff against his presidency
which extended to Mysore and Haidarabad. More than a thousand officers were
in open revolt, but Lord Minto by the exercise of considerable tact was able to
recall the mutineers to their duty. Barlow, however, was deprived of his office as
governor of Madras.
(8) Lord Moira (Hastings) ; the War with the Ghurkas, Pindaris, and Mah-
rattas. — Lord Minto's policy had been directed almost exclusively against Eng-
land's hereditary enemy; in accordance with his instructions he had attempted
no interference in the affairs of India itself. Francis Rawdon, Lord Moira (1813-
1823) was the first to re-enter the path which Wellesley had opened and to
bring the imperialist policy which he had begun to a definite conclusion. He was
a statesman of high capacity and excellent training, of lofty and benevolent ideas,
with clear foresight, and enthusiastically determined to make England the para-
mount power in India.
The storm which was to definitely subjugate the yet independent parts of India
to England under his government rose in a quarter where it had been least ex-
pected, in Nepal. This long stretch of territory on the southern slope of the
Himalayas (see the map, p. 430) had been inhabited from the remotest ages
of antiquity by a mixed race of Dravidians, Mongolians, and Aryans ; the brave
Gurkhali or Ghurkas situated in the western part of Nepal could not deny their
mixed origin, though they also claimed to be descended from immigrant Rajputs.
Their energetic rulers, Prithwi Narayan (1771) and Raja Bahadur Sahi (1775-1806)
h;iil made them the dominant power in Nepal, and .they now required space for
expansion ; on the west their path was barred by the mountain ranges and the
powerful States of the Sikhs ; they therefore advanced southward, following the
I>;ith of the river, and attempted to make the Ganges their frontier. War conse-
quently broke out in 1814. Lord Moira sent out two divisions, which were to
meet at Khatmandu, the western under Major-General Sir Robert Hollo Gillespie,
the eastern under Major-General Sir David Ochterlony. The western army first
came into action before Fort Kalanga, and was defeated by the Ghurkas with their
sh< -rt knives, Gillespie being slain ; from that point disaster repeatedly overwhelmed
tin- troops, which were led by officers who were either reckless, careless, or cowardly.
The advance guard of Ochterlony's army was taken prisoner with its imprudent
leader. Then, however, fortune changed. The Ghurkhas, numbering twelve
Mia] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 477
thousand only could not hold out for an indefinite time against the superior num-
bers of the English, their better armament and superior military science ; one after
another their fortresses fell, and most of them were forced to surrender in May,
1815. Peace, however, was not concluded until the 3d and 4th of March, 1816,
in Segauli. The British thereby acquired Kamaon, a belt of land on the southern
frontier of Nepal, where are now situated the health resorts in the Ganges terri-
tory for the recuperation of European officials (Simla, Dagoshan, Eanikhat, Naini
Tal, etc.). The Mahratta princes whom Wellesley had reduced were inspired with
malicious joy and increased hopes when they saw a handful of bold native war-
riors inflict heavy losses upon the English, and tarnish the halo of victory which
had surrounded them since the time of Clive. Gloomy and portentous reports
passed from the residency to the courts of the princes in defensive alliance with
the company. Moreover, robber bands from the armies of the shattered Mogul
kingdom had made their appearance, and had united into a powerful force under
the leadership of dismissed officers. These Pindari, living like gipsies in the
jungles, appeared from time to time to carry fire and murder, plunder and rapine
throughout the prosperous districts. The Mahratta princes recognised their exist-
ence in so far as they exacted tribute from the robbers infesting their own country.
Thus the bands of Amir Khan became a regular institution in the state of Holkar,
while the Pindari of the robber chieftains Karim Khan, Dost Mohammed, Chitu,
and others devastated the territories of Sindia, and paid tribute to the ruler for the
privilege. They now turned their greedy gaze upon English territory. The gov-
ernment in London turned a deaf ear to the representations of the governor-general.
It was not until the Pindari had made an incursion into the British Carnatic and
inflicted damage to the extent of several thousand rupees that the more energetic
George Canning came into office as president of the India Board of Control (p. 470) ;
and after the Ghurka war had been brought to a prosperous conclusion, the gover-
nor-general, who had been created Marquis of Hastings, obtained permission to act
vigorously.
With considerable prudence Hastings had already prepared two armies, the
numbers of which (120,000) were far superior to the scantier hordes (23,000)
of the Pindari ; he contemplated a severer task, and intended to overthrow the
sovereignty of all Indian princes once and forever. In his proclamation Hastings
claimed general paramount power for England for the first time; lawlessness
was to cease, and peace to be restored " under the protection and supreme power
of the English government." Notwithstanding the Convention of Bassein (p. 473),
the Peshwa, Baji Eao II, continued to lay claim to the leadership of the Mah-
rattas, and maintained a body of troops, a proceeding now contrary to rule.
However, the watchfulness and the firm behaviour of the resident at his court,
Mountstuart Elphinstone, forced him to sign a new convention in June, 1817 ;
in this he recognised his position as dependent on the company for the future,
renounced all political alliances, and gave up a piece of land, the revenue of which
to the extent of two million five hundred thousand rupees was to maintain a body
of English troops for his protection. It was an easier task to secure the promise of
Sindia to observe neutrality, and the consent of Appa Sahib (Mudhaji II) of Berar
to a subsidiary alliance.
In July, 1817, the two great armies, led by the governor-general in person, set
out from north and south against the robber bands, with such circumspection that
478 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
they were equally able, in case of need, to turn upon a revolted Makratta prince.
As a matter of fact the Peshwa speedily regretted the compact that had been
forced upon him, burnt the residency and made a furious but futile attack upon
the sepoys of the resident. The British troops soon appeared, occupied Poonah,
and drove out the Peshwa, who at once fled to Mudhaji II of Berar and induced him
to attack Jenkins, the resident at his court, in like manner. The attempt proved
no less unfortunate, and the attack ended with the imprisonment of Mudhaji.
Sindia, whose behaviour was equally suspicious, was so closely blockaded in his
capital of Gwalior by the English troops that he was unable to begin any aggres-
sive movement; in 1827 he died and left the regulation of the succession to the
British resident. Ultimately the Peshwa abandoned Holkar after his troops had
been beaten by General Sir Thomas Hislop at Mahidpur. The Peshwa with the
remnant of his troops suffered a last reverse at Ashta, not far from Satara ; he him-
self escaped, but after a period of flight fell into the hands of the English. At a
later period Nagpur, the capital of Mudhaji who had escaped the English, was cap-
tured and his troops defeated at Simajar ; fortress after fortress was stormed, the
stronghold of Asinghar being the last ; the exiled prince ultimately took refuge in
the Punjab with the Eajput prince of Jodlipur, where he ultimately died.
Thus in the year 1818 the three Mahratta princes who took part in the war
against the English were all reduced. The possessions of the Peshwa (Poonah)
were chiefly incorporated in the presidency of Bombay ; a small district was made
a principality, and a forgotten descendant of Sivaji (p. 441), was installed as ruler,
while the deposed ruler of Poonah was confined to Bittur near Cawnpore, with a
yearly income of eight hundred thousand rupees. As rulers of Indore (Holkar
dynasty) and Nagpur (Bhonsla dynasty), children were appointed, with a British
regent during their minority.
During the course of this struggle, the other task of destroying the Pindari was
accomplished ; it was an unceasing chase of an animal to be hunted to death.
Bands of robbers were wiped out of existence ; some of the leaders escaped into
concealment (e. g. Chitu, who was devoured by a tiger). Those who escaped the
persecution settled down as peaceful peasants ; the happiest fate was that of Amir
Khan, who made a timely surrender and received a part of the land taken from
Holkar as a vassal of England.
(e) Lord Amherst and the First War with Burmali. — By the prosperous
conclusion of the last Mahratta war the boundaries of the British rule had
been completed and determined for more than a quarter of a century. During
this period no military disturbances of any importance took place in Central
India, although the storm continued to mutter in small revolts for many
afterwards. On the other hand, the rule of the next governor, Lord Amherst
(August, 1823-1828) was occupied by a great war with Burmah. In Assam, which
Shemlman (p. 522) had incorporated with Burmah, dissensions had long existed
concerning the delimitation of the extensive frontier, and the imposition of custom
duties. Eventually (the new governor-general had not been two months in office)
a sepoy outpost was destroyed by the Burmese, and Lord Amherst's request for
indemnity was answered by a fresh incursion of the Burmese into the Island of
Shapori before the eastern mouth of the Ganges, and the capture of two British
officers. War thus became inevitable, though the conduct of operations was care-
less, slack, and improvident.
India
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 479
Divisions were sent out from Bengal and Madras ; these effected a junction on
the Andaman Islands (see the map, p. 538). The troops, under Archibald
Campbell, landed at the mouth of the Irawaddi and occupied Rangoon on May 11,
1824; this town, though only seventy years of age, had already risen to be the
second most important city in Burmah. However, as it happened, the southwest
monsoon had begun, and the whole country was transformed into a malarial
swamp, in which movement was impossible ; the Irawaddi was also so swollen as
to be unnavigable; the soldiers died by thousands of malaria (forty-five per cent of
the whole number perished without ever having seen an enemy). It was not until
December that the most capable of the Burmese generals, Bandula, appeared before
Kangoon and blockaded the town; the troops there stationed had improved in
health, and had been strengthened by reinforcements; after a siege of several
weeks the Burmese forces were driven back from Eangoon. The British, however,
abandoned the plan of advancing by the river in ships, and proposed to send out
two new expeditions from Assam and from Chittagong and to advance through the
enemy's country upon his capital. The first division spent three months wandering
in the forests of the frontier, and failing to discover the enemy returned home.
The second division, even before its despatch in October, 1824, had been disturbed
by the mutiny of a native Bengal regiment which was excited by the obvious lack
of preparations. The mutineers were shot or cut down. The expedition then marched
by land to Chittagong, reached Arakan, and captured the chief town of the province,
but was then decimated by malaria. In February, 1825, the military authori-
ties determined to send another army up the Irawaddi under Campbell. The brave
Bandula was killed by a cannon-ball at Donabew ; his troops were thrown into
confusion and put to flight at Prome during the first three days of December;
negotiations were then begun in Pagan. These, after many interruptions resulted
in the peace of Yandabo on February 24, 1826, when the British troops were only
a few days march from Ava. King Phagyi-dau was obliged to cede to the com-
pany the provinces of Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim (two valuable rice-growing
provinces) with a territory at the mouth of the Salwin (where Moulmein was
founded) ; the war had cost the English five thousand men (72|- per cent of the
forces employed) and one hundred and thirty millions of rupees.
As in the case of the Nepal war, so also the disturbance of the Burmese war
sent its last waves deep into the heart of India. With the exception of the earlier
British possessions in Bengal and Madras, the country was in a state of ferment ;
robber bands appeared in many places, petty princes constantly showed hostile
tendencies, while others broke into open revolt and were suppressed by force of
arms. The unsuccessful siege of the capital of Bhartpur by Lake (1805 ; cf. p. 474)
had spread the conviction of its impregnable power far beyond the boundaries of
its petty State, and it became urgently necessary for the English to destroy this
idea. The raja who died in 1825 had left a son who was a minor; Durjan Sal,
the brother of the deceased ruler, seized the regency on behalf of his nephew ; the
English then accused him of trying to supplant the lawful heir and invited him to
abandon the country in return for an indemnity. Upon his refusal, the fortress
was vigorously attacked and stormed after a siege of five weeks by Lord Comber-
mere (1826) ; Durjan Sal was captured in flight and confined in British territories
as a State prisoner.
480 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapt
er
(«) Lord William Bentinck ^1828-1835^. — During the period between the
last Mahratta and the first Sikh war, that is, the period between the year 1818 and
1845, those parts of India subject to English government enjoyed upon the whole
the blessings of peace. This advantage was entirely due to the statesmanlike
administration of William Henry Cavendish, Lord Bentinck (1828-1835), who had
largely developed the excellent foundations laid by Lord Hastings in Central
India. Comprehensive improvements had been brought about in the administra-
tion of justice (the installation of petty courts composed of natives for cases of
minor importance, the beginning of a general criminal code, etc.). Indians were
admitted in larger numbers to judicial and administrative posts, and their reliability
was increased by a higher scale of salary ; special official schools (in Agra) were set
up to train natives for official posts, and English was made the official language.
The taxation of the new provinces was also placed upon a better footing, and
greater consideration was given to the old rights of territorial proprietors; the
several villages were surveyed and ordnance maps made, cultivation was improved
by European instruction, etc. Notwithstanding expensive wars, Hastings had
raised the annual profits of the company to £ 3,500,000, while under his predecessor,
Minto, they had amounted to £2,000,000. Under the somewhat careless adminis-
tration of business under Lord Amherst considerable deficits had appeared, but
under Bentinck's carefully calculated regulations (reduction of interest on govern-
ment bonds, etc.), the profits soon recovered themselves. In short, the period
when the maritime European States had gained fabulous profits by Indian trade
(1600-1800) was passed for ever; the prosaic business-like methods of the English
had destroyed the fairy-like splendour of the Great Mogul court as depicted to
European imagination, and impossible expectations were no longer raised by the
much read travels of Olfert Dappert and his imitators.
By an act of parliament of August 28, 1833, the privileges of the British East
India Company, so often renewed, were decisively reduced. The company became
and remained, until April 23, 1854, nothing but a political body for carrying on
the government of India under the supervision of the Board of Control (p. 470) ;
its existence as a commercial company with a monopoly thus came to an end.
A further provision of this important act created a sinking fund with the object of
redeeming the company's shares at their current value (two hundred per cent)
within forty years ; on the expiry of this period parliament would have to decide
whether the patent of the company were to be renewed or not. The second of these
alternatives was adopted; by the act of May 4, 1854, the supervisory power of
the crown was extended, and a judicial investigation into the company's affairs was
made possible at any time ; this was the beginning of the end, which came in 1858
(cf. p. 493). The taxation regulations of the act of 1833 were abrogated by that
of July 16, 1842, and its new regulations for British colonial trade.
Two successes will place Bentinck's name forever among the great benefactors
of India : the abolition of widow burning (Sati or Suttee, p. 415), and the suppression
of the Thugs. Before his government the only attempt at controlling the custom
introduced by the Brahmans, had been the regulation that no widow should be
burnt against her will. The supervisoiy power implied by this ordinance led to
-deal calculations by which it was proved that the practice was on the decline ;
in Bengal, in 1828, out of sixty million inhabitants, only four hundred and twenty
cases of self-sacrifice took place, whereas seven hundred had occurred in 1817.
/»<««] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 481
Consequently, notwithstanding the resistance of the Brahmans, and the fears of
the Europeans, Bentinck made a sudden end of the custom ; on December 4, 1829,
a decree was issued making it an offence punishable with death to be implicated
in the burning of a widow. Thus the horrors of Sati, against which the great Akbar
had fought in vain, came to an end in India. The last case of widow burning took
place beyond the sphere of British influence in 1877 on the death of a ruler of
Nepal, Sir Jang Bahadur.
Bentinck's second claim to honour was the suppression of the murderous sect
of the Thugs. In that district where the Pindari (p. 477) had grown to power in
Central India, there had existed for several hundred years a cult of the goddess
of destruction, the bloody Kali (Bhawini ; p. 412) ; her worshippers had become a
hereditary sect or caste who made a living by the worship of the goddess, their
business being the strangling and robbing of [non-European] travellers. Thuggism
had spread throughout the country, was under a uniform organisation, and had a
special form of initiation, and a thieves' language of its own (ramasyana) ; before
each attempt, supplication was made to Kali for success, and part of the spoil
taken from the victim was laid at her altar. The victim was never killed by
bloodshed, but always by means of the noose (rumal or phansi). Bentinck vigor-
ously strove to extirpate the Thugs. He was so admirably supported by excellent
officials such as Molony, Wardlaw, Borthwick, and above all, Major Sleeman, that
by 1835 no less than 1,526 of these pious murderers had been captured, and the
remainder were forced to abandon their time-honoured trade of murder.
Upon two occasions only was England obliged under Lord Bentinck to interfere
in the affairs of individual States. In Mysore, a Hindu prince whom the English
had set up and educated, had governed so badly that a general revolt of his subjects
broke out (1831). The Maharaja was deposed and the government was hence-
forward carried on by a European with three coadjutors. At a later period Khama
Eajendra Wodeyar, whom the deposed prince had adopted in 1865, was recognised
as successor by the English, instructed by them in his new duties, and placed upon
the throne of Mysore on March 25, 1881. In Kurg (Coorg) the three last princes,
and particularly Wira-rajendra Wodeyar, who was a homicidal maniac, had been
distinguished by their cruelty. The paramount power of India was forced to
maintain her good name by the despatch of troops, which occupied the capital,
Merkara, and made the country British territory at the wish of the population
(1834). The prince was sent to Benares with a good pension, and at a later period
went to England, where he died in 1868.
(/) Auckland, Elleiiborough, and Hardinge (1836-1848], — With the governor-
ship of Lord Metcalfe (1835-1836) ended the period of visible improvement in
internal affairs. George Eden, Baron Auckland, a party candidate who replaced
Lord William Heytesbury, appeared in India as general governor from 1838 to 1842,
and with his rule begins a series of military operations lasting over twenty years.
His first task was the settlement of a succession, and in doing so he found an
opportunity to reduce the rights of the native ruler. In Oudh the " king " had
been poisoned in 1837, and the mother of the prince desired to set her son upon
the throne, to which his father had already destined him. Once again the Calcutta
government discovered that this son was illegitimate ; a distant relation was there-
fore chosen, who was likely to be more compliant, and to reign but a short time in
VOL. II — 31
482 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
view of his advanced age. However, the hereditary prince had himself crowned,
and the British resident ordered his troops to fire upon the people in the streets,
to storm the coronation hall, and to set his own candidate upon the throne ; the
latter in return signed a convention in November, 1837, giving the resident full
power " to enforce any regulation that might seem good to him, as supplementing
the needs of the existing administration." Even in England there was a general
conviction that these needs were partly imaginary, partly exaggerated, and largely
due to British interference. In London the compact was not acknowledged. Lord
Auckland, however, did not inform the prince of these facts, and he therefore
remained bound to his convention.
At the end of 1838, if small differences are taken into account, there were six
different modes by which the Anglo-Indian government was in relation with the
native States. These can be divided into the following classes, according to the
nature of the conventions concluded: (1) offensive and defensive alliances, with a
right to the company's protection when domestic affairs required it (Oudh, Mysore,
BeraT, Travancore, and Cochin) ; (2) the same as 1, without the right of internal
interference (Haidarabad, Gujerat, and Baroda); (3) as 2, with payment of
tribute, and in most cases the supply of contingents (the Eajput States) ; (4) guar-
antees of good faith and a defensive alliance (Sikhs); (5) friendly convention
(Gwalior) ; (6) a protectorate convention, with a more or less complete supervision
of internal affairs (Delhi, Satra, and Kholapur).
(a) TJie First War against Afghanistan. — The most dangerous occurrence
during Auckland's government was the struggle with Afghanistan. Following the
method of his predecessors, he had hoped to acquire this country by setting up
a ruler in dependence upon the English. A possible invasion on the part of Eussia
now became as dangerous a possibility as an overland march by Napoleon had for-
merly been. Russia was steadily advancing southward in Asia (cf. p. 222). From
early ages Afghanistan had been divided into three parts, the northwestern part
(Cabul) being under the influence of northern races (the Moguls, etc.), the western
part (Herat) was for the most part dependent upon Persia, while the valley of the
Hilment, with Kandahar in the south, was constantly subject to a change of
rulers. The Persian Nadir Shah (p. 445) had been followed in the supremacy of
Afghanistan by the Durrani chieftain Ahmed Shah. His grandson, Shah Shuja,
had been expelled by a younger brother in 1809, who was driven out in 1826 by
Dost Mohammed of the tribe of the Barakzai ; the latter was ruler of Cabul, while
Herat remained in the power of a Durrani prince. The directors of the company
were glad to see Afghanistan, which had often threatened India with danger in
earlier times, shattered and weakened by internal dissension. A further cause of
satisfaction was the rise of the Sikh kingdom under Ranjit Singh (p. 485), which
formed a barrier of defence between their west frontier and the territory of their
unruly neighbour. Soon, however, they were to come into closer relations with
Afghanistan.
The Persians sent out an army under Russian officers to Herat and besieged the
capital. Ranjit then started from Lahore and took possession of Peshawar, the
gate of entrance to Cabul. Dost Mohammed at once made friendly overtures to
ill-- KiiL-'lHi, und in September, 1836, Auckland sent a "commercial mission "to
Cabul under Alexander Burnes. At the same time a Russian brought to Dost
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 483
Mohammed an autograph letter from the Czar. Dost Mohammed thereupon gave
the English to understand that he would break with Russia if they would support
his views concerning Peshawar ; Auckland, however, returned a. negative answer.
Burnes was recalled and Dost naturally turned to the Russians (the spring of
1838). Auckland concluded an alliance with the Maharaja of the Punjab, with
the object of restoring the former ruler of Cabul, Shah Shuja, and despatched the
British agent, William Macnaghten, to accompany his future ruler, finally declaring
war upon Dost Mohammed on the 1st of October, 1838. With the object of spar-
ing the allies in the Punjab the expense that would be caused by the passage of an
army through their territory, the authorities occupied the country of the Sindhs, a
confederation of petty tribes on the Indus, a proceeding contrary to the will of the
population and in defiance of earlier conventions ; not content with this, they even
demanded a monetary subsidy from the confederation. The advance was then
made under the greatest difficulties through the Bolan Pass ; the columns were
constantly attacked by hostile tribes, and exposed to all the dangers and hardships
of a cruel climate ; they suffered at the same time from insufficient commissariat and
ill-organised transport. Kandahar was reached at the beginning of May, 1839, and
Shah Shuja took solemn possession of his land. In June the army marched onward
under John Keane to Ghazni ; the gates were blown up by gunpowder and the town
was stormed. Dost Mohammed was ultimately forced to fly to the Uzbegs beyond
the Hindu Kush, and the new ruler marched into Cabul with the English army on
the 7th of August, 1839. He was but coolly received by the native population;
when, however, he proceeded to organise a lifeguard of the wildest races for his
personal security, popular dislike found expression in repeated revolts. At the
same time the Beluchis threatened the southern line of retreat through the Bolan
Pass. Dost Mohammed re-entered the country from the north. After a fruitless
struggle he surrendered voluntarily to the British and was carried back to India as
a State prisoner.
The government was by no means satisfied with the conduct of the campaign
up to this point. William George Keith Elphinstone was sent out ; a brigadier,
old and past his prime, and, as he vainly represented to his superior, both bodily
and mentally unfit for his task. In vain did far-seeing officers utter warnings and
advise a retreat. Macnaghten considered it a point of honour for the troops to
stand by the prince they had undertaken to protect. The expenses of the war
rapidly rose and economy became imperative ; it was determined to meet this
necessity by reducing or withdrawing the sums that had been promised to hostile
tribes as the price of peace ; the only result was an outbreak of hostilities in every
quarter. The heights of the Khyber Pass were occupied by the rebels, and the line
of retreat through the other passes was threatened. On the 2d of November, 1841,
Burnes, who had been appointed Macnaghten's successor, was murdered in Cabul.
Macnaghten himself was also struck down on the 24th of December during a con-
versation with Akbar Khan, the son of the exiled Dost Mohammed. The forts of
Cabul, containing the supplies for the army of occupation, fell into the enemy's
hands, and the position of affairs became desperate. On the 28th of December it
was ultimately determined to withdraw the garrison of Cabul, consisting of four
thousand soldiers and twelve thousand camp-followers, and to abandon all the cap-
tured English officers, men, and women alike. Winter had now set in, the roads
were covered with snow, provisions for men and animals were lacking, and a cruel
484 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {Chapter iv
enemy surrounded the expedition. Under these circumstances the rapidly dimin-
ishing column traversed the passes of Kurd-Cabul, and Jagdalak in January, 1842 ;
at the last halt at Gandamak only twenty officers and twenty soldiers remained.
These ultimately succumbed, and only Dr. Brydon was left to bring the tale of utter
destruction to Jellalabad, where the garrison still held out under General Eobert
Sale. Together with this post the garrisons of Ghazni and Kandahar under
William Nott alone maintained their ground. The orders of the commander-in-
chief (who had remained with Akbar Khan as a hostage, but soon died of the
gout) to surrender the fortresses to the Afghans were disobeyed by the brave
troops; however, Ghazni surrendered in March, 1842.
Meanwhile important changes had taken place in India. In 1839 the Maha-
rajah of the Punjab, Ilanjit Singh, had died, and the country was in a dangerous
condition of lawlessness (cf. below, p. 485). In British India Auckland, whose
lack of initiative was to blame for the whole of these misfortunes, was removed in
October, 1841, in favour of Lord Ellenborough (1842-1844), a good-hearted ruler,
but bumptious, careless, and lacking in firmness. He entered office on the 21st of
February, 1842, and was immediately confronted with the urgent necessity of reliev-
ing as soon as possible the garrison shut up in Afghanistan. General Sir George
Pollock forced the Khyber Pass and at Jellalabad was joined by Major-General
Nott, who evacuated Kandahar on the 10th of August at the orders of Ellen-
borough. After blowing up the fortifications of Ghazni on the 6th of September
Pollock advanced upon Cabul (September 16); however, he discovered that the
British prote'ge', Shah Shuja, had been murdered on the 5th of April. His son was
placed upon the throne, the prisoners freed and the whole market-place blown into
the air as a reminder of the British power. On the 12th of October the troops left
Cabul, reached and destroyed Jellalabad on the 24th, and arrived at Peshawar
without difficulty on the 6th of November, 1842. The price of the undertaking was
a heavy loss of human life, pecuniary expense to the amount of £ 1,200,000, and
a dangerous blow to the British prestige. Tragedy was followed by comedy : the
governor-general made a solemn display throughout the country of specially made
imitations of the gates belonging to the tomb of Mahmud Ghazni, which this ruler
had stolen in 1017 from the temple of Somna't (p. 420), as "revenge for Somna't;"
he also issued a boastful proclamation, and a commemorative medal was struck
with the inscription "Pax Asice restitut.a"
(/8) The Disturbances in Sindh and Gwalior ; the First War with the Sikhs. —
Hardly had the medals been issued when a fresh war suddenly broke out. The
news of the English disasters in Afghanistan had brought the greatest joy to the
oppressed Sindh confederacy, the Amirs of which entered into secret negotiations
with Lahore. The English threw masses of troops into Sindh under their bold
warrior, Sir Charles James Napier. A convention, very comprehensive in its
demands, was laid before the Amirs, who signed it, but the people rose against
their leaders. On the 17th of February and the 24th of March, 1843, the Sindh
tribes were defeated with great slaughter at Miani, and were forced to submit to
the conditions of the conqueror; the Amirs were deposed and banished, the
country was incorporated, and Napier was appointed governor. He himself char-
acterised the whole proceeding as a " piece of rascality." The directory condemned
the incorporation as too severe, expressed their dissatisfaction in a decree (August,
1843), and — retained the country.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 485
Meanwhile the Maharaja had died in Gwalior and had left behind an adopted
son who was in his minority. The English naturally desired another ruler during
the minority of the successor than the popular candidate of the time, uttered
threats, and issued a demand for the reduction of the native army. When submis-
sion was refused a war broke out ; at Maharajpur and at Panniar the native troops
of Gwalior were utterly defeated after a brave resistance, reduced to two-thirds of
their former number, and a British division was placed in the country under English
officers.
Even greater danger broke out in the extreme northwest in the Sikh kingdom
(cf. p. 445) ; this people had been cruelly persecuted and almost exterminated by the
Persian king Nadir Shah and the Afghan prince, Ahmed Shah Durrani (1762, 1763,
and 1767). They were, however, highly tenacious of life. Toward the end of the
eighteenth century the Sikhs had again taken firm root in the Eastern Punjab
between the Beas and the Sutlej. The chief of the Shukarcharya confederacy, the
often mentioned Eanjit Singh, had been invested with the province of Lahore by
the Afghans in 1798 and at the beginning of the next century had almost made
himself independent during the quarrels about the succession which broke out
between the grandsons of Ahmed Durrani. He had transformed the loose federa-
tion of the Sikhs into a strong monarchical system, while the energies of European
officers had changed the wild warrior hordes into a modern army (in this respect a
special service was rendered by the Frenchmen Jean Francois Allard, Ventura,
Avitabile, and Court). When, however, he attempted to extend his power east-
ward beyond the Sutlej, he came into contact with the British. Beaten in diplo-
macy by the British agent, Charles Metcalfe, he was forced on the 5th of April,
1809, to renounce all claims to the territory beyond the Sutlej in return for the
British recognition of his sovereignty in the Punjab. This convention he faith-
fully observed until his death (27th of June, 1839); he extended his kingdom
northward (Kashmir, 1819) and west (Peshawar, 1829). Upon his death a vigorous
struggle began for the throne.1 Three parties arose from the general disaster :
the chief Sikh nobles (in particular Ghulab Singh and Peshora Singh) ; Eajputs
living in the Punjab ; and the chiefs of the army, the strongest of the three. Find-
ing the compact of 1809 a troublesome burden, the Sikh army, after the British
misfortunes in Afghanistan, conceived hopes of making a successful attack upon
the British power.
Matters were in this condition when Ellenborough was deposed, the council
having entertained well-founded doubts upon his capacity ; his place was taken by
Lieutenant-General Henry Hardinge (1844-1848), who had distinguished himself
against Napoleon in Spain and at Ligny, and had twice been minister of war
i Kharat Singh (* about 1725, t 1773), part ruler of the Sikhs
Maha Singh (* 1764, t 1702) Dal Singh
=2 name unknown, of the Jiud Clan (t 1797)
Ranjit Singh (* 2 Nov. 1780, t 27 June, 1839)
Names unknown 1. = Mehtab Kanwar of the house of the Ghanni-Sirdar ;
. I. . 2. = Rani Shonda, queen-regent 1844/45 [favourite, Lall Singh]
Jowahir Singh,
vizier 1844 (1.) Kar(ra)k Singh (* 1802, t 6 Nov. 1840) (2.) Dhultp (Duleep) Singh (* 1835),
= Rani Ceudkaur, queen regent 30 Nov. 1840—20 Jan. 1841 Maharaja 1844, appointed part ruler 1846,
(* 1795, t end of Jan. 1841) deposed 1849.
!— 1
Nou Nehal Singh (* 1821, t beginning Nov. 1840) Shir Singh, Maharaja 20 Jan. 1841— Sept. 1843
Perthab Singh (t Sept. 1843)
486 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
(1828-1830, 1841-1844). In view of the threatening attitude of the Sikhs his
predecessor had already reinforced the British troops in the northwest. The col-
lision was not long delayed. The Sikhs dismissed their European leaders, in full
consciousness of their own strength, and crossed the Sutlej in December, 1845,
sixty thousand strong and well provided with artillery (one hundred and fifty
guns) ; they surprised the English troops at breakfast on the 18th of December at
Mudki, but were driven back. The attack of the English at Ferozshah on the 21st
of December, where Sir Hugh Gough and Hardinge, who had taken the field in
person, failed to co-operate, was a day of heavy losses that ended with the defeat
of the Sikhs. On the 28th of January, 1846, they were again defeated at Aliwal
and entrenched themselves on the Sutlej at Sobraon. Here, too, their power was
broken on the 19th of February; after a vigorous resistance they were obliged to
retire beyond the Sutlej, with a loss of eight thousand men, and the British entered
Lahore. The conditions of peace which had been at first proposed were made more
severe in consequence of the hostile attitude of the defeated enemy ; at the conclu-
sion of peace on the 9th of May, 1846, Dhulip Singh, who was ten years of age,
was appointed rfija of part of the Sikh territory ; the Sikh army was limited to a
specified number and a British division was stationed in the country at the expense
of the conquered inhabitants (amounting to two million, two hundred thousand
rupees yearly). Henceforward, a British resident remained definitely in Lahore
(Colonel Henry Lawrence, later succeeded by Sir Frederick Currie) ; the higher
othrial posts were to be chiefly occupied by Englishmen. The whole of the Jalau-
der Duab between the Beas and the Sutlej was ceded to the company, as also
were Kohistan and Kashmir which the English immediately handed over to
( ihulab Singh, a friendly raja of Jammu, for ten million rupees.
Hardinge, who was made viscount of Lahore, devoted himself especially to the
improvement of the internal administration ; he was a man devoted to his work,
exceedingly anxious for the welfare of the people entrusted to his charge, keen-
sighted, and energetic. Under him the great Ganges Canal was begun which was
intended to secure a fruitful harvest to millions of men. Preparations were made
for the introduction of the telegraph and the construction of an extensive railway
system ; the trigonometrical survey of the whole of India was begun and an admi-
rable series of taxation regulations were introduced. Excellent hygienic measures
were introduced for the benefit of the army of occupation (health stations, etc.).
The government erected experimental plantations for the cultivation of tea, cin-
chona, etc. The intellectual welfare of the natives was by no means neglected by
the governor-general ; instruction was improved and Hindus poured in hundreds
to the government schools upon the announcement that the pupils of these schools
would have the preference for all official posts. A polytechnic school at Eurki
was erected for the natives in connection with the works upon the great Ganges
Canal. From Hardinge's time Hindus began to overcome their caste prejudices
so far as to conquer their horror of the " Black " Sea and visit the public schools
<•)' England As Bentinck had suppressed those extravagances of Hindu belief
which were expressed in the burning of widows and the religious murders of
the Thugs (p. 480), so the efforts of Hardinge and his officials (Sir Colin Campbell
and John MacPherson) suppressed the custom of human sacrifice among the
Khonds (p. 352).
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 487
(#) Dalhousie (1848-1856). — (a) The Second War with the Sikhs and with
Bv.rmah. — The new governor-general, Lord Dalhousie (1848-1856), had only
entered office for a few months when the dissatisfaction of the Sikhs at their
enforced submission broke out in open rebellion. On the 19th of April, 1848,
Vans Agnew, an officer, and Anderson, a civil servant, were attacked and murdered
in Multan : the Diwan (tributary prince) Mulraj declared himself independent.
Two young captains, George Harris Edwardes and Lake, succeeded in offering some
resistance at Ahmedpur on the 18th of June and at Sadusam on the 1st of July;
however, the revolt spread with lightning rapidity. The Sikhs were further re-
inforced by Afghan bands of cavalry whose yearning for revenge upon the English
surpassed their animosity to the Sikhs. General Whisli began the siege of Multan
on the 2d of September, but was forced to raise it on the 14th. Dalhousie then
recoguised that a thorough subjugation of the Sikh power was an absolute neces-
sity. The British troops in the Punjab were concentrated about the middle of
November in Lahore under Lord Gough (p. 486) but suffered severe losses at first,
owing to incompetent leadership. Meanwhile the division of Whish came up from
Sindh and began a second siege of Multan on 27th of December. After a week's
bombardment the town was captured on the 2d of January, 1849, though the
citadel did not surrender until the 21st of the month. A week earlier Gough's
careless method of advance lost him the bloody battle of Chilanwala (or Kussur)
against the rebels ; however, on the 21st of February he displayed better tactics
and destroyed the enemy near the little town of Gujerat. The remainder of the
Sikh troops were vigorously pursued by General W. K. Gilbert and forced to sur-
render on the 14th of March. An end was now made of the Sikh State. Dhulip
Singh, whom the English had recognised three years earlier (p. 380), was banished
on the 29th of March, 1849, and sent to Poonah ; the crown treasures with the
Kohi-nor (p. 429) and the royal demesnes were seized and the whole of the Sikh
territory was made a British possession. The brothers Henry and John Lawrence
were entrusted with the organisation of this valuable province and Dalhousie was
made a marquis by his grateful sovereign.
The Sikh war thus prosperously ended had brought the British territory in the
extreme northwest to its present limits and its natural frontier; to this territory
a new province was added by the second war with Burmah in the east. King
Pagan Meng (p. 523) could not console himself for the loss of his valuable pro-
vinces, and let no opportunity slip of harassing the English, especially the mer-
chants in his territory. The commercial associations in Rangoon, therefore, directed
a complaint to the governor-general in 1851, and he replied by sending a warship
in November to the mouth of the Irawaddi to investigate their complaints. The
ill-treatment of English officers provided an excuse for the declaration of war.
In February, 1852, six thousand men were sent out on a fleet of steamers, and on
the 14th of April Eangoon was stormed and the Burmese troops dispersed. The
rainy season, which had proved so destructive in the first Burmese war (p. 478),
inflicted but little damage on this occasion, thanks to careful preparations. After
the resumption of operations the troops advanced by the river to Prome (the 3d of
October). The king, however, declined to enter upon negotiations of peace, and
on the 20th of December the whole of Lower Burmah (Pegu) was incorporated
with the British Indian Empire. Its prosperity, commercial and general, has
since wonderfully increased.
488 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [>«/*«•
Dalhousie's Domestic Administration ; the Incorporation of Native States
on the Principle of " Devolution" — In the conduct of his domestic administration,
Dalhousie followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. To his government
belong the completion of the great Gauges Canal (1854), the opening of the first
railway (on his retirement two hundred English miles were in working order), the
establishment of steam traffic upon the Indus and of a regular steamship line
to the Red Sea (the overland route), the continuation of the trigonometrical survey,
the patrolling of the coast-line by the navy, the erection of a system of telegraphs,
the improvement of postal communication, the organisation of a central authority
for public works, etc. In spite of expensive wars, the revenues rose so rapidly that
a surplus was available after the fourth year of his administration. Education was
also improved on the lines which his predecessor had begun.
There is a tendency in England to overestimate Dalhousie's administrative
success at the expense of Hardinge ; the latter had already planned and prepared
most of these improvements. At the same time his successor deserves credit for
the care and energy which he invariably employed to increase the general pros-
perity of India. English historians describe Dalhousie as " the greatest of all the
Indian proconsuls," and are justified by the immediate success of his domestic and
foreign policy. His wars with neighbouring States had added two rich provinces
to the British dominions ; the policy he employed in dealing with the Indian prin-
cipalities considerably extended the territories of the East India Company, and
this by means of the happy invention and execution of a political principle (the
seventh ; cf. p. 482, above), the doctrine of the " devolution " of States. Upon this
principle the succession at the death of a prince was only recognised if a legitimate
son of the deceased happened to exist. When an heir of this kind was lacking,
adoptive sous were not considered in the succession as before, but the principality
in question " devolved."
This theory was put into practical operation in eight cases. The first of these
was the case of Satara, the last shadow of the once powerful Peshwa rule, which
occurred in the first year of Dalhousie's government. In 1853 the Eajput States
of Jhansi and Nagpur were incorporated, the last Bhonsla having died without
lii-irs. In three other cases, which occurred in the same year, the succession of titu-
lar princes without territory came in question ; their adopted sons were disregarded,
their titles, together with the pensions appropriated to the princes, being declared
null and void. This policy was carried out upon the death of the last Nuwab of
the Carnatic, on the death of the Eaja of Tanjore and of the former Peshwa, Baji
ll;iu, whose adopted son, Dundhu Path, afterwards better known as Nana Sahib,
was to revenge this disregard of his claims with such terrible ferocity upon the
Ilritish some few years later. The last titular ruler was the last Grand Mogul,
Mohammed Bahadur Shah II, witli whom disappeared the last gleam of the former
splendour and power of the Mogul kingdom (p. 443). He was forced to assent to
an agreement whereby his descendants should abandon the imperial capital of
Shfili Jehfin and withdraw into private life. Ultimately the tender conscience of
1 )alhousie could no longer bear the sight of the misgovernment in Oudh, a district
watered by numerous perennial streams, and the most thickly populated province
of India. It is true that according to the convention of 1837 (p. 482) the prince
was less to blame than the resident for the bad state of the country ; the latter
possessed the express right of introducing any regulation that he thought might
/"*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 489
obviate misgovernment, and the present desperate condition of affairs svas largely
due in the first instance to British interference. Moreover, the ruling dynasty had
been invariably favourable to the English, and had rendered them valuable services
in many cases of necessity. These considerations, however, were far outweighed in
the governor-general's eyes by the duty of furthering the prosperity of the people
of Oudh, and on the 7th of February, 1856, he added the richest province of India
to the British possessions. Certain districts were also taken from another ally, the
Nizam of Haidarabad (the " assigned districts " in Berar). This proceeding was
justified by the fact that the Nizam was unable to pay the debts which he had
incurred for the maintenance of the British troops obligatory upon him.
Dalhousie was a pious Christian. No one appealed so emphatically to the will
of the Almighty, and no one knew that will better than he. His first consideration
was the subject races. As under heathen misgovernment the natives could never
be so prosperous as under a Christian ruler of England, it was binding on his
conscience to introduce the blessings of incorporation with England to devolved
States. " It is to me inconceivable that any one could ever dispute the policy of
using every opportunity to consolidate the districts in our hands by the occupa-
tion of intermediate States and the extension of our government over all, as by
such extension their highest interests will be furthered. Millions of God's crea-
tures will gain freedom and prosperity from the change."
The revolt of 1857 was a terrible recompense for the gifts of freedom and pros-
perity under British rule. Incorporation not only deprived the people of any
possibility of obtaining higher posts ; a more cogent argument was the suppres-
sion of those feelings of fidelity to the native ruling houses with which the
people were connected by long tradition. It was impossible for them to accom-
modate themselves in a moment to a civilization which had developed under totally
different conditions, and which was to them merely an object of hatred and fear.
They preferred the oppression of their own kin to the favours of strangers who
trampled upon their most sacred possessions without the smallest considerations
for their feelings, deposed their princes, and carried boundless wealth out of their
country. It was their religious sentiments that were most deeply wounded.
Former governor-generals had spared the creed, the laws, and the customs of the
Indians as far as possible; principles were now enforced and deeds committed
which outraged every fundamental conception of the Hindu. To the Hindu the
ideal of the present and the future life was to leave behind him a son upon his
death, who should close his eyes and maintain the sanctity of his ancestors by
pious worship. Should fate deny a man an heir of his body, his race might yet be
continued by adoption, and a son thus taken to himself was equally capable of
securing his everlasting salvation. Upon these convictions the strangers now
trampled, with the insolent excuse that they were acting for the good of the
people, and with the consequence that they outraged the inmost feelings of the
Hindu while at the same time securing material advantage for themselves. In
the profession that their work was pleasing to God, the Hindu could see nothing
but scorn and hypocrisy.
(Ji) Lord Canning ; the Sepoy Revolt (1857}. — Far-seeing men were well
aware of the extent and intensity of the feeling among the natives ; the directors,
however, lent no ear to their voices, and the attention of Viscount Charles John
490 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [ch«j,t<>rir
Canning (1856-1862), the successor of Dalhousie, was for the moment occupied by
the eastward advance of the Persians. This nation had been encouraged to attack
and occupy Herat by the weakness of the English troops, from which contingents
had been drawn off to the Crimean War; however, at the end of 1856 a fleet
from British India appeared in the Persian Gulf; the Persians were rapidly
defeated and forced to evacuate Herat. In the Peace of Paris, on the 4th of
March, 1857, rthey undertook to refrain from further interference in Afghan
affairs.
.Meanwhile the government continued to trample upon Hindu prejudice with a
recklessness which seems inconceivable in the light of later events, but was in fact
the natural result of the ignorance which prevailed in the highest administrative
circles as to the thoughts and feelings of the subject races. The government, in its
humane desire to ameliorate the lot of widows, legalised second marriages by an
act of 1856. It abolished the privilege of polygamy which the Brahman class
had hitherto enjoyed. It favoured the work of Christian missionaries and allowed
military officers to undertake the enterprise of converting their own sepoys. It also
attacked the sepoy on the point where he was most susceptible, by threatening him
with loss of caste. In his first year of office, Lord Canning carried a measure known
as the General Service Enlistment Act, under the terms of which all who enlisted as
sepoys for the future were to be liable for foreign service. The classes which had
hitherto taken the military career as their profession were thus confronted with the
disagreeable alternatives of forfeiting their caste-rank or abandoning the soldier's life.
Xo more unfortunate moment could have been chosen for these innovations than
one at which the Indian possessions to be guarded had been enormously increased
by the policy of Lord Dalhousie, while the European element in the army had
been diminished by the drafting of regiments to the Crimea. The train was
already laid for a revolt, and it only needed a spark to produce the explosion
which a series of blunders had prepared. That spark was supplied in January,
1857, by the incident of the "greased cartridges." Owing to the substitution of
rifles for muskets, it had become necessary to supply the troops with cartridges of
a new kind. A fraudulent contractor contrived to make use of cow's fat as a
lubricant for the cartridges, in spite of the pains which the government had taken
to prevent the use of this or other objectionable substances. To the Hindu sepoy
it was contamination to touch the fat of an animal which his religion held sacred ;
and when the secret leaked out the new cartridges were represented as a device of
the government for depriving sepoys of their caste. It was rumoured that with
a somewhat similar object, hog's lard had been used in the manufacture of the
cartridges served out to Mohammedans. The government did its best to repair
the blunder which had been committed, by calling in the suspected cartridges,
and offering to let the sepoys manufacture their own in future, or to give
any other proof which might be thought sufficient that the use of contaminating
materials had been discontinued. It was too late. Before the end of April two
regiments had to be disbanded at Barrackpur for refusing to use the government
• •artridges. On May 3 there was a similar incident at Oudh, which necessitated
the disbanding of a third regiment. The crisis came when eighty-five native
troopers were sentenced to imprisonment for refusing their cartridges. On
May 10, the < lay after their imprisonment, the sepoys of Meerut rose in a body, shot
d««\vn their officers, and released their comrades. The English garrison of Meerut,
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 491
commanded by an officer who should have been superannuated years before,
remained inactive in its cantonments while the Europeans in other parts of the
city were massacred. The sepoys left Meerut with impunity ; some dispersed to
their homes, but another part marched to Delhi, seized the emperor Bahadur Shah,
and proclaimed the restoration of the Mogul Empire. With this step the mutiny
may be said to have commenced.
The revolt spread like lightning through the country between the Tumna and
Patna, and far beyond. It was confined to those districts which had been affected
by Dalhousie's policy of " devolution." The presidencies of Bombay and Madras
remained almost unaffected. It is true that in the kingdom of the Nizam, which
had been roused by the confiscation of certain provinces, the resident and the
Madras troops on the spot were able to stifle the impending disaffection ; and there
was more serious trouble in Nagpore. But the really formidable movements origi-
nated to the north of the Nerbada (Nerbudda) River, among the Mahratta States,
in the middle and upper Ganges valley, in Eohilcand and the Punjab ; that is to
say, in those parts of India where some sympathy with the Mogul cause was still
to be found. Where this did not exist, as in Rajputana, the grievances caused by
the policy of devolution were not in themselves sufficient to win support for the
mutineers.
Within the disaffected districts, the three towns of Delhi, Cawnpore, and Luck-
now were the main centres of rebellion. Fifty thousand sepoys rallied to the
Mogul standard at Delhi in the summer of 1857. Cawnpore, where the English
garrison was small and the commander, Sir Hugh Wheeler, had to the last refused
to believe in the possibility of a general mutiny, or to take the necessary precau-
tions, was besieged from the 8th to the 26th of June by Nana Sahib, and then, owing
to want of provisions, capitulated on condition that a safe conduct should be given
to all Europeans within the walls. On June 27 the garrison embarked, accord-
ing to the agreement, with the idea of proceeding down the Ganges to Allahabad.
Fire was opened on their flotilla, and of four hundred and fifty-four men only four
escaped by swimming to the opposite shore, while the women and children, to the
number of one hundred and fifty, were brought back to Cawnpore as prisoners,
only to be massacred in July when the advance of Havelock forced Nana Sahib
to evacuate the town. Meanwhile in Lucknow, where upwards of a thousand
Europeans were collected under Sir Henry Lawrence, a staunch resistance was
offered, the old residency being converted into a fortress. Lawrence was killed
by a cannon ball on July 2, but the defence was continued by Colonel Inglis
against overwhelming forces.
The troops which remained faithful to the English were concentrated in Alla-
habad under General Havelock, who reached India on June 17, and was at the head
of his army by the 30th. From this base, and under this leader, the attempt was
made to save the prisoners at Cawnpore and to raise the siege of Lucknow. Early
in July Nana Sahib was beaten back from Cawnpore. It was too late to save the
prisoners, but they were terribly avenged. Two marches upon Lucknow were
frustrated by the rains and the diseases which they brought with them ; but at
length, on September 25, after reinforcements had been brought up, Outram and
Havelock led the relieving force into Lucknow. The numbers of the relieving
force were so small that the siege could not be raised, and for the moment the
only effect of Havelock's entry was to strengthen the defending force. But the
492 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
danger of a capitulation had been averted. Havelock, unfortunately, did not live
to see the fruit of his magnificent efforts. He died of dysentery in Lucknow on
September 24, while the siege was still in progress.
Meanwhile, under able leaders, the army of the Punjab dealt a decisive blow at
the heart of the rebellion. Under normal circumstances the Punjab could ill have
spared troops for any purpose, however pressing. But the treaty which had been
concluded in 1855 with Dost Mohammed of Afghanistan now bore its fruit. The
Amir, though urged by his subjects to seize the opportunity of invading India,
remained loyal to his engagements; and it was therefore possible to withdraw
troops from the Afghan frontier ; only in the all important post of Peshawar was
any considerable force retained. The interior of the Punjab caused the less anxiety,
because the Sikhs, who had never forgotten or forgiven the devastations of the
Moguls, elected to stand by their European masters. Lawrence, in spite of sporadic
mutinies among his sepoys, could send down eight thousand efficient troops, of
whom nearly half were Europeans, to the siege of Delhi. The attack commenced
in June with the occupation of the Eidge by the advance guard of the English army.
But reinforcements were unavoidably slow in coming up, and, since the enemy's
force numbered some thirty thousand, nothing decisive could be done before August.
Then the scale was turned by the arrival of John Nicholson from the Punjab with
his famous flying column. He led the assault on September 14, and though he fell
mortally wounded, the breaches had been secured before his fall. After six days of
desperate fighting the emperor's palace fell and the last positions of the mutineers
were carried. The emperor, Bahadur Shah, attempted flight, but got no further
than the tomb of Humayun, some six miles from the city. He was pursued and
captured, with two of his sons, by Hodson of Hodson's Horse. Hodson shot the
two princes with his own hand, believing, as he stated, that it would be impossible
to bring them in to Delhi through the crowds of natives by whom his road was
thronged. The emperor escaped this fate, only to be banished to Rangoon, where
he died in 1862.
By the fall of Delhi the issue of the mutiny was settled ; but much had still
to be done before the work could be regarded as complete. The residency at
Lucknow was still closely besieged, and the supplies of the garrison were running
short. In the Mahratta country, the Eauee Ganga Bai of Jhansi, one who, like
Nana Sahib, had been robbed of the reversion to a principality by the principle of
devolution, had a formidable army in the field. The arrival of troops from Eng-
land and the Cape in October, 1857, made it possible to take energetic measures
against both these centres of rebellion.
The credit of relieving Lucknow belongs to Sir Colin Campbell, a veteran who
had served with distinction in the peninsula, in the Sikh wars, in China, and in
the Crimea. He arrived at Calcutta in August, 1857, to assume the office of com-
mander-iu-chief, and organised an army of relief with such energy that on Novem-
ber 17 he was able to extricate the hard-pressed garrison of the residency at
Liu-know. The advance of a large rebel force upon Cawnpore made it unad vis-
able to deal at once witli the Lucknow mutineers, and leaving a small garrison
tinoYr ( hit ram in the Alum Bagh, four miles from Lucknow, as a sign that Oudli was
ii"t t" !"• t-varuaU'd, lie marched to Cawnpore, and thereon December 6 inflicted
a decisive defeat on the sepoy leader, Tantia Topee. Returning to Lucknow in
the early part of 1858, he cleared the city of Nana Sahib's army after a series of
/-fa] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 493
attacks which lasted for a fortnight (March 2 to 16). Sir Colin Campbell has been
criticised for want of decision in pressing and following up the assault, and it
would have been a great advantage if the rebels had been surrounded and forced
to surrender. But the victory was a great one, and gained with but a trifling loss
of life on the English side. As the result of it Oudh and Eohilkhand were recov-
ered without further difficulty. Nana Sahib fled into the jungle, where it is
believed that he succumbed to fever.
Meanwhile the Mahratta district was being reduced by an army sent from
Bombay under the command of Sir Hugh Eose. The Eanee Ganga Bai was
expelled from her hill fort at Jhansi after a desperate siege (March 23 to April 3,
1858). She then joined forces with Tantia Topee, and though beaten at Kunch and
Kalpi, contrived, when her pursuers had halted from sheer fatigue, to take advan-
tage of an offer from the mutinous army of the loyalist rajah, Sindia of Gwalior,
to expel Sindia, and to occupy his territories. Here, however, she fell in battle
against Sir Hugh Eose on June 18. With her death the main conflagration
ended. The power of the English in India was firmly re-established by the
end of 1858.
(i) The Incorporation of India with the British Empire (_?&55). — The sepoy
revolt was the last struggle for independence on the part of the Indian people, and
its convulsions were the birth pangs of a new epoch. On August 3, 1858, Queen
Victoria signed an act of parliament, which, completing the work of the acts
of 1833 and 1854 (p. 480), dissolved the East India Company and set Her
Majesty's government in its place, with the English crown at the head of the
management. This act was carried out on September 1 ; Lord (since 1859
Earl) Canning, the first viceroy of India, continued a highly beneficial govern-
ment until the spring of 1862. The pacification of the country was speedily com-
pleted; isolated revolts (in Patna, 1863) were rapidly suppressed without difficulty.
The construction of railway lines, begun under the governor-generals, Hardinge and
Dalhousie (cf. pp. 487 to 488), was energetically continued (see the plate, "The
Victoria Eailway Station Terminus in Bombay," ), and materially contributed to the
expansion of European civilization. The new viceroys of India,1 which was de-
clared an empire by act of parliament April 29, 1876, devoted themselves to the
care of the frontiers, and to the many tasks which domestic administration involved
(reorganisation of the finances, of taxes and custom duties, of the administration
of justice ; mining and forestry, relief in cases of epidemic and famine, necessary in
1873-1874, 1877-1878, and 1899). The act of August, 1858, concludes the his-
tory of India as an independent whole ; it was now a part of the great British world
empire, and its later history belongs more properly to that of England (VoL VI).
1 1862-63, James Bruce, Count of Elgin and Kincardine ; 1863-68, John Laird Mair, Baron Lawrence ;
1869-72, Richard Southwell Bourke, Count Mayo; 1872-76, Thomas George Baring, Baron Northbrook ;
1876-80, Edward Robert, Baron Bulwer-Lytton ; 1880-84, George Frederick Samuel Robinson, Marquis
of Kipon; 1884-88, Frederic Temple Blackwood, Count of Dufferin; 1888-94, Henry Charles Keith Petty
Fitzmaurice, Marquis of Lansdowne; 1894-98, Victor Alexander Bruce, Count of Elgin and Kincardine,
and since 1899, George Nathaniel, Baron Curzon of Kedleston.
494 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapter iv
3. CEYLON
A. THE NATURE OF CEYLON
(a) TJie Country. — The history of India at the very earliest times known
to us has been influenced by its position on the southern boundary of a great
continent ; its frontier mountain ranges, apparently impassable, have been
repeatedly crossed by foreign nations, and these invasions constantly transformed
the history of the country so richly dowered by nature. The case of Ceylon
is wholly different ; as the most southerly outpost of India, it is so far removed
from the rest of Asia that no races have penetrated the island from the interior of
the continent ; every invasion within historical times started from the peninsula,
from which Ceylon is divided by a narrow strait little broader than a river ;
as regards, therefore, its general characteristics, it forms an immediate continuation
of India itself. The eastern and western ghats form an abrupt boundary to the
Deccan. On the south lie the plains of the Carnatic, broken by several isolated
plateaus (the Sivaroy, Palni, and other mountains), and by numerous small islands
of granite and gneiss rock. This plain gradually sinks away southward to fall
below the sea at the Corornandel coast. Beyond the narrow Palk Straits the island
gradually rises above the sea level, the north of Ceylon being almost entirely flat
(coral soil), while in general outline the island is formed like a shield. The centre
of this immense shield, the highlands of Malaya, are crowned by the central moun-
tain range of Ceylon, the most southerly and the greatest of those isolated mountain
systems in Southern India. The narrow straits are interrupted by numerous
islands placed like the pillars of a bridge (Adam's Bridge), and form rather a link
of communication between the island and the mainland than an obstacle to inter-
course, the characteristics of both countries being almost identical in consequence
of this connection. In Ceylon, as in India, the rocky foundations of the soil con-
sist of the same primeval stone, and on either side of the Palk Strait the charac-
teristics of rocks and mountains are identical. The same winds blow upon both
countries; in the summer the rainy southwest monsoon bringing a bountiful
supply of moisture to the steep and mountainous west, while in winter the dry
northeast monsoon refreshes the eastern side of the island.
The vegetable world of Ceylon is therefore a repetition of that of India. The
west of either country is marked by luxuriant growth and inexhaustible fertility,
while the east shows a poorer vegetation and a more niggardly soil ; here, as in
the flat north of the island, the population only attains to any density when the
industry of man has succeeded by scientific works of irrigation in collecting the
fertilising moisture against the times of long drought. The fauna of Southern
India and of the island are again, generally speaking, identical. In both cases
the forests are inhabited by the elephant, the great tiger cats (the Bengal tiger
;il<mij has not crossed the straits), apes, snakes, white ants, and leeches. The
scanty means of livelihood produce the same epidemics in the dwellers of either
country ; sickness and death are due to cholera and especially to malaria, which is
prevalent at the foot of the mountain ranges and of the many isolated peaks, with
their blocks of stone thrown in wild confusion one upon another, as also in the
jungles of the river beds.
India
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 495
(5) The Original Population of Ceylon. — It would be highly astonishing
if this identity of natural characteristics were not also observable in the popula-
tion which has inhabited the island from the remotest antiquity. At the present
day Ceylon is inhabited by two main types anthropologically and ethnologically
different, a dark and a fair race, who immigrated at a comparatively late time and
were not the original inhabitants of the island. In primeval times India, like
Ceylon, was the home of one race only, characterised by dark colouring, wavy hair,
and small or even diminutive stature. The facts of geology, and of the distribu-
tion of plants and animals, prove that the continent and the island must have
formed a continuous whole at no very remote epoch. Assuming, however, that
the Palk Straits have always been situated where they are now, it would have been
an easy task for people, even in the lowest stage of civilization, to have crossed from
the plains of Southern India by the Adam's Bridge to the attractive districts of the
island. It can be historically demonstrated that Tamil invasions took place at
least two thousand years ago, and the plantations of Ceylon at the present day
annually attract from the continent a Dravidian population which is to be
numbered by thousands ; it is, however, certain that before the first historical
immigration, the island was inhabited by tribes standing in the closest possible
relation, anthropologically and ethnologically, to the Dravidian peoples. The
legendary woodland tribes of the wild Wakka are undoubtedly to be identified
as the ancestors of the modern Veddas ; it is, however, probable that the first
Aryan immigrants into Ceylon found other Dravidian races in possession who
had risen to a higher state of civilization in more favourably situated habitations.
The "Tamils of Ceylon," who now inhabit the north and the east coasts of the
island, are undoubtedly for the most part descendants of those Dravidians who
overran the island from the north in numerous campaigns.
B. THE PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD OF CEYLON
TOGETHER with this dark race of Ceylon of primeval Indian origin, the island
is inhabited chiefly in the more fertile southwest portion by the Singhalese, an
entirely different race, both in civilization and physique. These were originally
strangers to the country, with totally different physical characteristics, language,
religion, manners, and customs. Where was the home of these strangers ? Cer-
tainly not in the south of India which was then inhabited by pare Dravidians.
(a) The Aryan Immigration. — The geographical position of Ceylon obviously
points to North India as the most probable point of departure for a migration
of this nature. The southern part of the island is confronted by no country
whatever, while in the east and west the mainland is far distant and divided from
Ceylon by broad oceans only to be traversed by the exponents of a highly developed
civilization. On the other hand, the coasts of Nearer India, curving inwards from
the northwest and northeast, plainly point the mariner towards Ceylon. With the
exception of a few Malays introduced within the last century, the island exhibits
no trace of Indonesian or Malay blood which might in any way remind us of the
African races ; on the other hand, the nearest relations of the Singhalese are to be
found by following the line of those coast routes, among the Aryans, who crossed
the mountain frontier and entered India in the second or third century B. c., and in
496 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
the mixed tribes of the North Indian plains descended from them ; physical char-
acteristics, language, custom, and social organisation alike point to this origin.
Evidence of this nature even enables us to define with some precision the date at
which these immigrants entered the island and the road by which they came.
The highest castes of the Singhalese have always been the Goiwansa or
Handuruwo, that is to say those of noble birth; Brahmans have never found
a place among their various castes. Where they are mentioned by tradition,
or in historical records, we have to deal with pure invention on the part of the
chronicler, or with foreign Brahmans, references to whom occur, for example, in the
accounts of the introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon ; in no case, however, do
the Brahmans appear as an essential element in Singhalese society. Thus the
Singhalese branch must have broken away from the Aryan-Indian group of peoples
at a time when the Brahmans had not yet secured their supremacy over social
order, justice and morality, popular feeling, thought, and action ; that is to say,
before the period of the formation of the great states of the central Ganges
(cf. p. 371). Hence the Singhalese migration cannot have started from the east
of India, from the mouths of the Ganges, or from Orissa ; for it was not until the
Brahmans' supremacy had been assured that the Aryans advanced into those dis-
tricts and within the last thousand years the Ganges delta has been a dangerous
district of swamps avoided by settlers. At a much earlier period the Aryans on
the west had advanced to the sea, starting from the Punjab and following the
Indus to the mouths of that river, while at a later period they followed the
Arawalli mountains to Gujerat (p. 371). The Indus was at that time, together
with its mouths, of very little importance as a trade route for transmarine
commerce ; its current was too strong, its delta too soft and shifting, while
the sea coast offered no protection against storms. On the other hand, an admi-
rable base for transmarine enterprise was afforded by the sheltered Gulf of Cambay
(p. 346 above), running far into the country with its rich hinterland ; this from the
first was the point where the Aryans took the sea during the nourishing period of
the great Aryan States on the Ganges, and during the whole of the Mohammedan
period it formed the chief harbour of India.
(6) The Sources of the History of Ceylon. — These conclusions, which point to
an Aryan migration from the Gulf of Cambay as a highly probable and indeed
as an irresistible inference, are well supported by tradition. In Ceylon human
memory has been more tenacious than in the Indian continent, and has preserved a
reliable historical record for more than two thousand years, and in some respects
even earlier. It is true that the epic of Eamayana, which in its Singhalese form
is a shorter imitation of the great work of Walmiki (p. 369), a glorification of the
mythical conqueror of Ceylon, is pure poetical invention. Unhistorical are all the
legends there related of the expedition of Kama, of the seduction of his faithful
wife Sita", of his alliance with the apes (the black races of the Southern Deccan), of
his enemies the Rdkshasa, of his bridge over the straits, his wonderful exploits, and
his ultimate return to India. Ra"rna is a model of virtue from the Brahman point
of view, and the many exploits related of him are only the scaffolding used by the
artists in constructing the ideal of a Brahman royal son.
We have, however, more valuable historical sources. The monarchy lasted
for more than two thousand years, as did the Buddhism which it protected, a
I nd
«] HISTORY OF THE WORLD
course of development more favourable to the muse of history than the political
and religious revolutions which disturbed the history of Nearer India. In the
monastic libraries everything was recorded which concerned the order itself and
its patrons the kings, and the annals thus collected were from time to time con-
densed into literary works. Thus the oldest of the Ceylon monasteries, the Maha"-
wira (" Great Monastery ") in Anuradhapura, has preserved the tradition of the
introduction of Buddhism, and the history of the " Great Family " of one hundred
and seventy-four kings, in its chronicle, " Mahawans'a." Two Pali books, the Dipa-
wailsa (" History of the Island "), and the Mahawaii^a, which is later by one hun-
dred and fifty years, are works diverging but little from the original, and like that
original both are continued until the death of King Dhatusena (479 A. D.). At a
later period, however, continuations were constantly added to the Mahawans'a,,
which were carried on to the end of the Singhalese monarchy and the English
occupation, 1816. For a long period these and similar works lay forgotten in the
libraries of the monasteries, until in 1836 George Tumour made the first part of
the Maha"wan£a known by a faithful translation, throwing a flood of light upon
the early history of Buddhism. Other chronicles (Rajawali, Raja Ratnfitshari, etc.}
display divergencies from the original source, which explain the difference between,
the views of the several monasteries to which they belong ; they are shorter, less
accurate, and moreover inadequately translated. A third class of documents, such
as the Pujawali, the Mkayasamgraha, etc., is still hidden in the collections of
manuscripts within the Buddhist monasteries,
(c) The Legend of the Colonisation of Ceylon. — In the case of every chronicle
the light of history only dawns with the introduction of Buddhism into the island,
that is, with the time of Asoka. The accounts given of earlier events in Ceylon
are chiefly pure Buddhist invention, which attempted to increase the sanctity of
the sacred places in the island by asserting the presence therein of Buddha or of
his twenty-three predecessors. These improbabilities apart, the prehistoric por-
tions of the chronicles contain secular stories of far greater importance for us.
Here we find reduced to writing that tradition which for centuries had been
handed down by the people, greatly transformed and decorated, the work of whole
epochs being assigned to individual personalities, but on the whole plain and
recognisable in its main features. The very first figure of Singhalese history can
be supported from the evidence of historical ethnology. Wijaya (" Victory ") led
the foreign tribes across the straits, and his characteristics can be recognised in
the Aryans who advanced to the sea before the epoch of Brahman supremacy.
(a) Wijaya. — In the country of Lala (Gujerat), so runs the legend in chapter
seven of the Mahawans'a, a lion surprised a caravan which was escorting the
daughter of the king of Wanga and of a Kalinga princess ; the lion carried off the
king's daughter to his cave, and from their marriage was born a son, Sihabahu, and
a daughter, Sihasiwali. Mother and children fled from the captivity of the lion ;
the lion's son grew up and, after killing his father, became the successor of his
maternal grandfather, the king of Wanga ; at a later period, however, he returned
to his native country of Lala, and built towns and villages in the wilderness, in
spots where irrigation was possible. His eldest son, Wijaya, was made viceroy
when he came of age ; however, he developed into an enemy of law, and his asso-
VOL. II — 32
498 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
dates committed innumerable acts of treachery and violence. Ultimately the
people grew angry and complained to the king. He threw the blame on the
friends of the prince, but censured his son severely. The offences were repeated,
and upon the third occasion the people called out, " Punish thy son with death."
The king then half shaved the heads of Wijaya and his seven hundred retainers,
and put them on board a ship which was driven forth into the open sea. Wijaya
first landed in the harbour of Supparaka, in Jambudipa (India) ; fearing, however,
that the reckless immorality of his followers would arouse the animosity of the
natives, he continued his voyage. " This prince, by name Wijaya, who then be-
came wise by experience, landed in the district of Tambapanni, of the country of
Lanka (Ceylon). As the king Sihabahu had killed the lion (Pali, Siha ; Sanscrit,
Simha), his sons and descendants were called Sihala (Singhalese), that is, lion
slayers, and as this island of Lanka1 was conquered and colonised by a Sihala, it
was given the name of Sihala [Dipa] " (that is, Lion Island, Sanscrit, Simhala
[Uwipa] ; in English pronunciation Silan, and in German, Ceylon).
The historical foundation of this legend carries us back to the starting point of
the Singhalese settlement, to the country of Lala ; the name survived in the Greek
Larike (or Surachtrene), the modern Gujerat ; the solitary lion, who at the very
outset inhabited the country, attacked and plundered the neighbours, is to be ex-
plained as an early Aryan settlement on the Gulf of Cambay ; indeed, the nick-
name of " lion " was a favourite designation for all the warrior Aryans and their
leaders, and in Gujerat itself a famous dynasty, known as " the Lions " (p. 445),
continued till recent date. At that period the Aryan conquerors had not been
subjected to the stern caste regulations of the Brahman's, and had no scruples
of conscience in contracting alliances with native wives (the Kaliiiga princess).
The migration to Ceylon belongs to a somewhat later time. The lion prince made
the former desert a populous country, with towns and villages ; then further dis-
turbances broke out. According to the Buddhists, who followed the Brahman
version of Indian history, the lawlessness of Wijaya and his adherents merely con-
sisted in resistance to the Brahman claims. The rulers attempted to use compul-
sion ; however, the bold spirit of the warlike part of the Aryans continually
revolted against Brahman predominance, until the warriors were defeated and
sailed away to seek intellectual freedom in a new country. Driven back from the
Malabar coast, where Brahman influence seems to have penetrated at an earlier
period (p. 388), they found what they required on the northeast coast of Ceylon,
an arable district untroubled by Brahmans.
Wijaya landed with his adherents, apparently in 543 B. c. (cf. p. 500), at Tam-
bapanni (according to the Sanscrit name of the river, Tamraparnt, p. 386, the
Taprobane of the Greeks). His future history is adorned by tradition with fea-
tures obviously belonging to the Odyssey (due to the intercourse of early European
civilizations with the Spice Islands) ; the strangers first fell into the hands of an
enchantress, Kuweni, who kept them fast in an underground place ; they are then
freed, as in Homer, by Wijaya, who is helped by a god well disposed to man (in
this case Vishnu). He marries the princess enchantress, and with her help
becomes supreme over the country ; then, however, he divorces her and marries
the daughter of the powerful neighbouring king Pandu of Madura, while his com-
rades take wives from the daughters of distinguished families in the Pandu
kingdom.
India] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 499
(/3) The Successors of Wijaya. — The death of Wijaya, who left no legitimate
descendant, was followed by a short interregnum (" the country of Lanka" was
without a king for a year"); however, a new influx of the Aryans arrived from
Lala, and Wijaya's nephew, PaTiduwasudewa, seized the throne of the Singhalese
king. After the death of his son Abhaya, the succession was interrupted for
seventeen years by disputes about the kingship. Then, however, after the defeat
and slaughter of his uncle, the most important of the legendary rulers ascended the
throne, by name Pandukabhaya. Under his governorship the Singhalese State
rose to considerable power ; the different races of the island were reconciled
(" the king favoured the wishes of the Yakkas ") and lived peacefully together in
the capital of AnurMhapura. This town had been founded by the first settlers ;
now, however, the tank which had been previously built was extended to form a great
lake, and by the construction of a palace and shrines for the different religions and
sects the settlement became highly important, and is spoken of by the chronicler
as " delightful and well built." The oldest of the king's uncles, the former prince
Abhaya, was installed as governor of the town ; two Yakkas were appointed as
overseers for every two of the four quarters into which the town was divided,
another Yakka being made sentinel of the southern gate. The despised races,
such as the Chandalas, were settled in the suburbs, where they were employed in
street-cleaning, police work at night, and burials ; outside the town, cemeteries and
places for torture and execution were constructed. The royal hunters (the Veddas,
who now dwell apart from the other inhabitants) had a street of their own. The
king appears in the character of a benevolent monarch. Hospitals are erected for
the sick, and the ruler attempts to meet the views of the various religious sects by
assigning quarters to them, building them houses, and erecting temples.
The Singhalese rulers thus mentioned by tradition cannot be considered in any
degree historical personages. Wijaya is as vague a personality as the founder of
Eome, and Pandukabhaya was no more a legislator than Numa. It is probable
that the characteristics of famous generals were interwoven with the picture of
those legendary kings ; the most we can say is that they represented successive
stages of civilization. Wijaya is the personification of the first Aryan emigration,
as Panduwasudewa is of a second ; his successor, Abhaya, represents the struggle
of the princes for supremacy, while Pa"ndukabhaya personifies the final victory of
the individual over his rivals, and the introduction of social order, the reconcilia-
tion of the natives to the immigrants, the rise of general prosperity, and the devel-
opment of the kingdom. Generally speaking, the Aryan development in Ceylon
advanced on parallel lines with the development of the kindred tribes in the Ganges
territory. The victorious conquest of the original inhabitants and the occupation of
the country, the struggles of princes with one another, and the final formation of
certain great towns, in which a high civilization rapidly developed, supported by
the many natural products produced by cultivation or by a bountiful nature, and
advanced by the peaceful incorporation of the subject tribes into the body politic,
— such is the general course of development. In one respect only was the devel-
opment of the island Aryans essentially different from that of their brothers on
the mainland, — the Brahmans never asserted their fatal influence upon the intel-
lectual development of Ceylon.
500 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
(7) The Chronology of the Legendary Period. — The chronology of the legend-
ary period suffers from the fact that the formation of the Singhalese kingdom has
been compressed into the lifetime of a few persons. Chronological data; in the
Singhalese chronicles are, generally speaking, unreliable before the introduction
of Buddhism. A calculation of their statements of the length of reign attributed
to individual monarchs will carry the lauding of Wijaya back to the year 543 B. c.,
the arrival of Panduwasudewa to the year 504, the rule of Pandukabhaya between
the years 437 and 367 B. c. Sixty years after the death of the latter the throne
was ascended by his grandson Dewanarnpiya Tissa, who welcomed the first
Buddhist missionaries to Ceylon. Thus the development of the kingdom occupied
only two hundred and thirty-six years. Such a process naturally demands a far
greater period of time. The first Aryan conquests may have been more or less
contemporary with the occupation of Gujerat and the struggles between the spirit-
ual and temporal power in the north of India, in which case Ceylon history will
begin about the middle of the second millennium B. c.
C. THE EARLY HISTORY OF CEYLON (300 B. c. TO 1500 A. D.)
THE early history of Ceylon assumes a more reliable character about the year
300 B. c. It is characterised by three main movements : Buddhism, internal strug-
gles for the succession, and foreign wars with the Dravidians on the continent.
(a) Buddhism in Ceylon. — The first human figure in Singhalese history is
Dewauampiya (" the delight of the gods ") Tissa, the contemporary of Asoka. In
the Singhalese chronicles his date is not yet accurately determined. While his own
history is written in full detail, the scantiest account is given of his three suc-
cessors, of whom we know little more than the facts that they were all younger
brothers of Tissa, that each of them reigned ten years, and that they endowed
many pious foundations to support the monks ; similarly King Asela, who is distin-
guished from the above-mentioned rulers by the first entrance of the Tamils into
the succession, is said to have reigned ten years (he is stated to be the son of King
Mutasiwa, who had died a century earlier !). These accounts of the different reigns-
have often received wholly arbitrary additions. Consequently the great event in
Ceylon, the introduction of Buddhism under Tissa, is to be placed at a later date
than that assigned by the chronicles. The chroniclers supposed Tissa to have ac-
cepted the new doctrine shortly after his accession, which is stated to have occurred
in 307, the actual date being 251 B. c., and placed his death in 267 B. c., whereas
the despatch of Buddhist monks to Ceylon by Asoka did not take place before
250 B. c.
The monarch who gave the monk so hearty a reception was naturally painted
by them in most brilliant colours. Tissa is placed at an equal height of piety to
Asoka, who had extended his kingdom from Afghanistan to the modern Mysore
(p. 406), and legend is even ready to retrace the friendship of the two monarchs to
their association in a previous state of existence in which the kings were said to
have been brothers. But all this brilliant description cannot entirely hide the
truth that the Ceylon king was dependent in some degree upon Asoka. In his
thirteenth rock inscription Asoka prides himself on the fact that he had dissemi-
nated the Dhanima (p. 396) "as far as Tambapamni;" moreover, Tissa, who
EARLY BUDDHIST TEMPLE BUILDINGS AND THE RUWANWELI-DAGOBA
AT ANURADHAPURA
(After Henry W. Cave, " The Ruined Cities of Ceylon.")
EXPLANATION OF THE BUDDHA TEMPLES AT ANUKADHAPUKA
IN CEYLON KEPKESENTED OVEKLEAF
Abo-ve : The temple of Isurumuiiiya i.s presumed to be a foundation of King Tissa (about
300 B. c.), and is built on a lake romantically situated and surrounded by lotus plants, but
infested with crocodiles. The temple i.s hewn out of the rock, which is covered with sculptures in
high relief, and is remarkable for the grotesque frescoes and sculptures in low relief on its terraces.
Especially striking are the heads of four elephants at the corner of the lake, above which a sitting
figure holding a horse is visible.
Below : The Ruwanweli, or Gold-dust Dagoba. In the second half of the second century B. c.
Buddhist architecture underwent a revival under the Singhalese king Duttliagamani. The dagoba
represented overleaf is almost three hundred feet in height ; though now overgrown with trees and
climbers, it consists of a strong mass of masonry. In the foreground appear the ruins of the
watch-house, the outlines of which are still marked by six parallel lines of columns. The artistic
lion carvings to the left of the entrance deserve notice. Round the dagoba runs a wall almost one
hundred feet broad, wide enough for the progress of processions, in which a great number of
elephants usually took part. Above this rises a second platform about live hundred feet broad,
supported by four hundred stone elephants each nine feet high, of which only the heads, fore-
quarters, and fore feet are visible. Upon this foundation was built the temple proper, which rises
to a height of two hundred feet.
(After Henry \V. Cave, "The lluiued Cities of Ceylon." London, 1897.)
*H HISTORY OF THE WORLD 501
ascended the throne amid great festivities in 251 B. c., represents himself as being
again crowned by special deputies of Asoka after the exchange of rich presents
destined for coronation purposes. The surprising liberality with which the expo-
nents of the new doctrine were received was probably due in part to the dependent
position of Ceylon. Mahinda, the son of Asoka by Dewi, a woman of inferior
birth, the daughter of a merchant in Wedisa, was most kindly received by Tissa
with six other missionaries a month after his second coronation. Magnificent
endowments of land (the splendid park of Magamega in the capital, together with
the mountain of Chetya) were the first gifts to the missionaries ; the transference
was made with the greatest pomp, and dwellings for the monks were immediately
•erected upon the lands. On the very first day the king and six thousand of his
.subjects were converted to the new teaching, which had long before lost its original
simplicity and in which the worship of relics was an important element. Hence
almost immediately two of the greatest objects of veneration were brought by spe-
cial ambassadors from the country of the founder ; these were the collar-bone of
the "enlightened one," and a branch of the sacred Bo tree (p. 391). At the pres-
ent day upon the island the shrines built for such relics with their cupola-shaped
thupas (stupas) or dagobas (dhatugarbhas), in some cases of enormous size, are
to be found by thousands, and are a characteristic feature in the landscape (see the
plate, " Early Buddhist Temple Buildings at Anuradhapura "). The relics were
accompanied by the order of nuns of Sariighamitta (p. 399), who also found many
adherents.
The introduction of Buddhism was fraught with the most important conse-
quences to the whole development of the Singhalese people. Their ancestors had
escaped the Brahman power by emigration to the island ; their descandants volun-
tarily subjected themselves to Buddhism. The Indian Brahmans had attained
their high position at the price of severe straggles ; the Buddhist monks received
. theirs as a present from the Singhalese kings, and henceforward the people are
under their spell. At the moment the order merely acquired sites for the erec-
tion of monasteries, of summer resorts, and shrines for relics. In other respects
the command of complete poverty which Buddha had laid upon his bikkhus
(" beggars ; " p. 398) was strictly followed, and the monks obtained the necessaries
of life as alms and in no other way ; but after a little more than one hundred
years this rule was broken, first by the king Duttha Gamani, who was celebrated
for his services to the order, and afterward by his grandson Wattha. Extensive
districts were now assigned to the monks for their support. Successive kings in
like manner assigned the best land, the canals and tanks, indeed whole villages
with their inhabitants, to the monks ; by degrees if not the whole, at any rate the
best part, of all arable and cultivated land passed into their possession.
Meanwhile the inhabitants became impoverished in every respect. The popu-
lation increased in proportion to the land recovered for cultivation by means of
irrigation, but the products of such land chiefly went to support the idle monks.
Many villages were in a state of serfdom to the monasteries ; the remainder,
oppressed by the royal taxes and the alms which they were obliged to place in
the pots of the men with the yellow robes (p. 399), were cut off from all hope of pro-
sperity. A considerable proportion of the growing youth disappeared into the mon-
asteries of monks and nuns ; those who remained upon the land were oppressed by
the teaching that activity in any form was an obstacle to true happiness, while
502 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
intellectual growth became impossible, and freedom or self-respect were unknown.
The pious king who had introduced Buddhism to the island, with many of his suc-
cessors, might well look with satisfaction upon the wealth of the country, the
increase of agriculture, the growth of the population, and the boundless piety of
his subjects. To the splendour of the capital, even in later times, testimony is
borne not only by the admiring accounts of the Singhalese historians and Chinese
pilgrims, but still more by the miles of ruins now hidden in the primeval forest
which alone mark the sites of former temporal and ecclesiastical palaces. The
extent of the arable land and the thickness of the population are shown by the
enormous tanks now dry, almost as large as lakes, while the slavish subjugation of
the people is evidenced by the gigantic shrines and the many miles of irrigation
works which were constructed by the forced labour of the villages and districts.
But the apparent greatness of the royal power was at the same time its weakness ;
the people over whom the king ruled was a people of subservient slaves. In the
mountains only did a remnant of the former population survive ; even there small
ruins of monasteries are to be found ; but there also lived strong and independent
men. When a Tamil invasion overran "the royal domains" on the great northern
plains and expelled the king from his capital, the wave of conquest was broken,
upon the mountains.
Almost all the kings were good rulers according to Buddhist ideas ; but their
praise entirely depends upon the extent of the gifts with which they endowed the
order. Mahawafis'a in one and the same breath relates that Asoka, the great
friend of the order, was the wisest and best of princes, and that he killed his ninety-
nine brothers to secure his sole power in Jambudipa (India) ; similarly later mur-
derers of brothers and kings are described as " men who devoted themselves to works,
of love and piety," or as men " who after their death enter the community of the
king of the gods," provided only that they were benevolent to the order during
their reigns. In this respect extracts from the Mahawansa vividly recall certain:
descriptions of Gregory of Tours. Buddhism did nothing to stop the murder of
kings by relations or ambitious ministers. A large proportion of the rulers disap-
peared by this means as though mown down by the plague, and the land was-,
reduced to a state of the utmost confusion. But few kings appear who governed
with any show of strength or were able to expel the Indian Dravidians from the
country ; the majority were unimportant weaklings in the hands of the monks.
Many of them furthered the prosperity of their people from the Buddhist point of
view (p. 401). They did their best to increase the extent of land available for
agriculture, to plant fruit trees, to found hospitals (several kings were famous as
physicians), to promote art and science, the theatre and dancing (individual kings
are distinguished as admirable artists, as poets and sculptors). But the kings did
as little as the monks to improve the material prosperity of their subjects or to-
educate their powers of independent thought and will.
The numbers, the riches, and influence of the order increase! with extraor-
dinary rapidity. However, the purity of life and doctrine deteriorated no less
speedily. Buddha himself had not reduced his teaching to writing, and immedi-
ately after his death divergent opinions upon the meaning of the " enlightened
one's " doctrine had appeared. Thus from the very outset the Buddhist church
showed a strong and fatal tendency to sectarianism, and the theory that thought
and action implied suffering was rapidly reduced to a series of external formalities.
/n,/ia] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 503
Intolerance toward other faiths became bitter hatred and deadly animosity, as the
avarice and malevolence of the order were increased by the growth of its interest in
its rich possessions. Consequently the history of the order is a history of violent
schism. From the time of King Wattha Gamani, the brotherhoods of the monas-
teries of Mahawihara and Abhayagiri (cf. below, p. 505) were separated by bitter
jealousy and hatred ; the tension increased with the value of the possessions
which the kings assigned to one or other of the parties, and bloody struggles broke
out the moment the king definitely declared for either of the two rivals. Ener-
getic rulers made attempts at reunion, which appeared successful for the moment,
but the old hatred invariably broke out sooner or later and seriously impaired the
prestige of the church. The disconnected nature of the doctrine itself was
reflected in the looseness of monastic morality. Mahawansa complains, " In the
villages which have been presented to the order, purity of life for the monks
consists solely in taking wives and begetting children." The people gradually
grew more indifferent to the order, for which their respect had long since ceased ;
and the order itself 'was so shattered by the long weary Tamil wars, that from
1065 A. D. onward scarce four monks in full orders could be found throughout the
island, the number necessary by the laws of the church for the formation of a
legal chapter and the creation of new members ; monks, therefore, had to be
imported from India or Burmah.
(6) The First Historical Invasions of the Tamils. — The list of successors to
Dewanampiya Tissa provides a more intelligible but a far less pleasing picture than
the obscurer figures of that monarch's predecessors. After the reigns of three
kings, who appear but shadowy personalities in the chronicles, the Tamils invaded
the country in the year 237 B. c., according to the Mahawans'a, under the leader-
ship of two young princes, who possessed numerous ships and a strong force of
cavalry ; after killing the king Sura Tissa they ruled over the kingdom for twenty
years. The Buddhist historians describe them as righteous, and we may therefore
assume them to have been tolerant. They were defeated and killed by Asela
(p. 500). However, in 205 B. c., after the lapse of the usual ten years, the Tamil
Elara invaded Ceylon from the north, " a man of the famous tribe of the Uju ; "
he slew the king, and held the supremacy for forty-four years impartially against
friend and foe. The only province that did not bow to the foreign yoke was the
mountainous Rohana in the extreme south of the island; from that point a
descendant of " the great family," Duttha Gamani, again expelled the Tamils. One
Tamil fortress after the other fell into his hands, and finally in 161, in a battle at
Anuradhapura, he killed the Tamil king Elara himself in single combat, and
immediately afterward his nephew Bhalluka, who had brought up a fresh army
too late from Malabar. This portion of the Mahawansa reads like a stirring
epic. The monks had every reason to praise the pious and liberal conqueror of
the Tamils. He refounded numerous monasteries and erected permanent memo-
rials in the Palace of the Thousand Pillars of Lohapasada in the Marikawatti and
the Ruwanweli dagobas (see the lower half of the plate, p. 502).
Laji Tissa, a grandson of Duttha Gamani, killed his uncle, Saddha Tissa, in 119
B. c. to secure the power for himself ; his successor and younger brother, Khallata
Naga, was murdered by his minister, Maharattaka, in 109 B. c. Hardly had Wattha
Gamani Abhaya, the youngest grandson of Duttha Gamani, revenged this treachery
504 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
than the Tamils, attracted by these quarrels about the succession, again invaded
the country under seven leaders (103 B.C.) and forced the young king to seek
refuge in the mountains. At that time purity of blood among the Aryan Singha-
lese kings had long been lost. Scornfully the Brahman Giri called after the flying
king, the great " Black " Sihala is flying ! Like his grandfather, Wattha GSmain
:ilsi) raised in the highlands a force capable of liberating the throne of Wijaya
from the hereditary foe (88 B. c.) ; afterward during his reign of twelve years he
built many monasteries, and assigned large districts (Patta) for the support of the
monks, who had hitherto lived on the alms gained by begging (p. 501). During
the Tamil supremacy the population had been so impoverished and the contribu-
tions of alms had grown so scanty that the very existence of the order would have
been endangered if forced to depend on these. At the point where he had been
insulted by the Brahman Giri he founded a monastery which he called Abhaya
Giri, after his own name and that of the Brahman. The elder monastery of Ma-
hfiwihara, inspired by jealousy, soon found an excuse for quarrelling with its
younger sister foundation. The dispute led to one good result, — the reduction to
writing of the sacred doctrine which had hitherto been orally transmitted from
generation to generation. The three Pitakas (p. 394) and the commentaries to
these, the Atthakathas (p. 415), were written in the Singhalese language, and a
wound was consequently inflicted upon the Buddhist church which has never since
been healed.
(c) The Last Kings of the House of Wijaya and their Successors (88 B. C. to
1164 A- D.*) — Melancholy is the picture which the historians of the monastery of
Muhfiwihfira have drawn of the immediate successors of Wattha Gamani. His son
Chola Naga is described as a robber and footpad from the very moment of his
accession, and afterward as a cruel persecutor of the monks ; apparently he had
declared against the brotherhood. However, his wife AnulS, (47 to 42 B. c.) seems
to have been a disgrace to the royal throne, and to have rivalled Messalina by her
poisonings and voluptuousness. She poisoned her husband's successor to secure
the throne for herself and to gain full license for her unbounded avarice. Hence-
forward death was active in the royal palace : Anula herself was killed in 42 B. c.,
while twelve years later Amanda Gamam was assassinated by his younger brother,
as also was Chandamukha Siva in the year 44 B. c.
(a) Disturbances upon the Tlirone and in the Church ; Buddhaghosha. — The
last of " the great family," Yasalalaka Tissa, who had murdered his predecessor,
had a warder by name Subha who closely resembled himself. The king would
amuse himself by clothing his servant in the royal robes and setting him on the
throne while ha himself took the post of doorkeeper. Once, however, when lie
joked with the false king arrayed in his royal robes the latter called out, " How
can this slave dare to laugh in my presence!" Yasalalaka was punished with
death and Subha continued to play the part of legitimate king ; however, after a
year he was killed by Wasabha, a member of the Lambakanna caste, who seized
the throne. The Lambakanna caste had displayed rebellious tendencies at an earlier
period. Their caste pride had been wounded by King Ilanaga (38-44 A. n.) ; they
had revolted and expelled this monarch for three years. On the present occasion
they maintained their possession' of the throne for three generations. Then ensued
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 505
a period of rebellion and murder, and the power passed into different hands, until
in 248 A. D. three of the Lanibakanna murdered the king Wijaya II and seized
the power.
In the country at large times were hard, and the prevalence of robber bands
made life and property alike uncertain ; the royal prestige was greatly impaired,
and the order was weakened by the dissensions of the two chief brotherhoods.
The last of the three above-mentioned Lambakauna, by name Gothabhaya, vigor-
ously attacked the Abhayagiri sect, and expelled from the church and banished
from the island some sixty monks who " had adopted the false Wetula doctrine,
and who were like thorns to the conqueror's religion." At a later period, however,
he was persuaded to change his mind by Sariighamitta, a pupil of the banished
high priest, to whom he entrusted the education of his sons. In the case of the
•elder, Jettha Tissa I, this education proved unsuccessful ; upon reaching the throne
he persecuted the Abhayagiri monks, and his tutor in particular, who was forced to
flee to the mainland. Twelve years later he was succeeded by his younger brother
Mahasena (277-304 A. D.). This king was persuaded by his tutor, who had now
returned, to begin a severe persecution of the Mahawihara brotherhood. He pro-
hibited these monks from receiving alms, and thereby made it impossible for them
to remain in the " royal domains ; " they were forced to flee to the mountains. For
nine years the venerable mother monastery remained entirely abandoned, and pro-
posals were brought forward to dismantle it and to use the valuable materials for
the improvement of the hostile Abhayagiri monastery, when at length the king re-
voked his decision against the persecuted monks. His adviser, Sarnghamitta, was
killed in the course of a popular rising, the expelled monks were recalled, and their
monastery was splendidly restored. Henceforward the king attempted to make
amends to the brotherhood for the wrong which he had done to them by a special
display of liberality.
The next four kings were good Buddhists, liberal to the church and benevolent
to their subjects. Sirimeghawanna, the son of Mahasena (304-332), is lauded for
the complete restoration of the Mahawihara monastery, and also as being the ruler
under whom a princess of Dantapura, the capital of Kalinga, brought to Kandy in
•Ceylon the most sacred relic of the Buddhists, the tooth of Buddha (Da'thadhatu).
Among the following monarchs Shettlia Tissa II (332-341) is distinguished as a
•sculptor and a painter, while his son Buddhadasa (341-370) was famous as a phy-
sician and the author of a " Compendium of the Whole Science of Medicine."
Then followed Upatissa II (370-412), who was murdered by his brother Mahanama.
Under the latter (412-434) an event took place of high importance to southern
Buddhism, — the translation into the Pali language of the Atthakathas emanating
from Mahinda, which had hitherto existed only in Singhalese and were unknown
in India. The monk Buddhaghosha (p. 415) was sent from Magadha to Ceylon
l)y his teacher Rewata to translate this work " according to the rules of Magadha,
the root of all languages ; " in the seclusion of the Ganthakara monastery at
Anuradhapura he completed this great work. On the occasion of the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his coronation King Chulalongkorn of Siam (p. 512) issued a new
edition of this work in thirty-nine volumes (Bangkok, 1893-1894).
(/3) The Decline of the Royal Power and the Advance of the Tamils (J$ 1^-116 If,
A. D.} — The example set by Mahanama in murdering his brother was rapidly fol-
506 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
lowed. Then the Tamils reappeared under their king Pandu and his sons, occu-
pying the northern part of the island from 416 to 463; they were ultimately driven
out of the country by Dhatusena, a great landed proprietor and apparently a de-
scendant of the family of Asoka (the Maurya dynasty). " He gave the country
peace, and restored to religion those rights which the strangers had abolished ; "
however, he was imprisoned by his own son Kassapa and buried alive (479 A.. D. ).
This scandalous deed opened another period of misery for the country. In the
next two centuries from 479 to 691 no less than twelve rulers died a violent death.
Fratricide and the revolts of generals produced a rapid series of changes in the
succession to the throne. The provincial viceroys tended to independence, and
the sectarian warfare within the Buddhist church continued undiminished. The
Tamils, who had formerly invaded the country for plunder and conquest upon their
own initiative, were now constantly brought in by Singhalese princes or generals
to overthrow the legitimate occupants of the throne. Temples and royal treas-
uries were plundered, religion was oppressed, and the people grew more and more im-
poverished. However, during the fifth and sixth centuries, the period of the king
Kumara Dasa (515-524), to whom is ascribed the Sanscrit translation of the R&-
luayana (p. 496), which remains only in the Singhalese translation, and Agrabhi I
(564-598), who was famous as a poet, Chinese pilgrims describe the capital as
a brilliant town ; even at the outset of the seventh century a Singhalese historical
work speaks of the beauty of Anuradhapura. Nevertheless, under Aggabodhi IV
(673-689) the capital could no longer hold out against the hereditary enemy ; the
royal residence was removed to Polonnaruwa (Pulathi) at a greater distance from
the point of Tamil invasion, the harbour of Mantotte on the Gulf of Manaar. This
change became permanent about 846 A. D. The island gained some occasional
relief from the internal wars of the different Dravidian races on the mainland.
Sena I (846-866) was, however, obliged to take refuge in the inaccessible recesses
of the highlands ; the northern part of the island was cruelly devastated, the
capital plundered, and its treasures carried off to India. Now, however, attracted
by the rich booty, the Chola began war with their Tamil neighbours. Thus under
Sena I the Singhalese crossed the Palk Straits ; the Paridya king was killed, the
hostile capital of Madura plundered, and the booty taken from Ceylon recovered.
Under Kassapa IV (912-929) a Singhalese army even goes to the help of the
Pandya king, though with little effect, and the Tamil ruler is forced to take refuge
in Ceylon.
This rapid rise of Singhalese prosperity was of no long duration. Under
Udaya III (964-972) and Mahinda IV (975-991) Ceylon was invaded by the
Cholas; under the leadership of their king, Parakesariwarman (1052-1061), they
overran the island to its southernmost extremity, the province of Rohana, carried
away two sons of the king Manabharana, and killed the king Wira-Salamega
(about 1056). The plundering extortions and the religious animosity of this
Malabar people reduced the country to an awful state of desolation. It was not
until 1059 that a brave noble, Loka, succeeded in driving the Chola from his
native province of Rohana, the last, though not the inviolate, bulwark of the
Singhalese kingdom. His successor, A'ijaya Bahu I, also known as Sirasangha-
bodhi (1065-1120), though at first defeated, repeatedly advanced into the low-
lands, where he overthrew three Chola armies, captured their fortresses, recovered
Annrfulhapura, and shattered the last resistance of the enemy in a bloody conflict
A**.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 507
under the walls of Polonnaruvva ; this victory permanently freed the country from
the Chola.
The power of Ceylon was not yet, however, definitely established. When
Vijaya Bahu endeavoured to enter into friendly relations with the enemy, and
sent special ambassadors to the Chola king with rich presents, the noses and the
ears of the emissaries were cut off. Further, when he ordered his troops to march
against the Cholas, a mutiny broke out, and the whole of the south rose against the
king, who had much difficulty in crushing the rebellion. The country was utterly
exhausted, and the Buddhist order was in so feeble a state that not a single monk
in full ordefrs was to be found anywhere in the island ; monks, accordingly, had to
be brought over from Eamanya (Martaban in lower Burniah). Under Vikkama
Bahu I the southern provinces broke away entirely and were divided among
different rulers. The king had the utmost difficulty in driving out an adventurer
from Arya Land (North India), who had blockaded him in a mountain fortress,
and in recovering Polonnaruwa. The population was completely exhausted, and
the taxes were collected by measures of the severest oppression, " as the sugar-mill
presses the juice from the cane." To meet his necessities, Vikkama Bahu was
forced to appropriate church property, and thus made the monks his deadly
enemies. They emigrated to Kohana, taking with them Buddha's tooth and his
alms-dish. During the many wars the irrigation canals had been destroyed, and
the once fruitful land had become a malarial desert. Towns and villages were
abandoned, and had grown so desolate "that their sites were undiscoverable."
(d) Parrakkama Bahu I the Great. — Parrakkama Bahu I (in Sanscrit, Para"-
krama (1164-1197) was the greatest of all the monarchs who sat upon the
Singhalese throne. Only by realising the misery under which the country almost
succumbed during his youth can we duly estimate the results achieved by the
intellectual force and patriotism of this ruler, whom history rightly names " the
Great."
After the death of Vijaya Bahu T the Singhalese monarchy had almost entirely
collapsed. The nominal ruler was still resident in Polonnaruwa, but the greater
part of the country was broken into petty principalities. In the province of Kohana
alone four such princes were to be found, including Manabharana, who laid claim,
to the little district " of the twelve thousand villages," and was the father of
Parrakkama the Great. This ruler spent his youth in the mountains ; " he re-
ceived a thorough instruction in religion, in the different legal systems, in rhetoric
and poetry, dancing and music, in writing and in the use of sword and bow, and
in these exercises he attained the highest degree of perfection " (Mahawafisa).
Upon the death of his uncle he became ruler of his principality. His administra-
tion was in every respect admirable ; he introduced a properly organised system
of taxation, and endeavoured to make the utmost possible use of streams and rain-
fall for the irrigation of the soil. At the same time he drilled those of the male
inhabitants capable of bearing arms, with a view to the reunion of his country as
a whole. His first expedition was directed against the highland of Malaya, which
he subdued with the support of a general of King Gaja Bahu IV. The court at
Polonnaruwa was entirely denationalised ; it was thronged by crowds of foreigners,
including princes from the mainland, who disseminated foreign influence, foreign
customs, foreign religion, and " filled the land of the king like thorns in a bed.'*
508 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
For this reason he declared war upon Gaja Bahu, and advanced by a rapid series of
victories to the land of pearls, " the coast of the Gulf of Manaar." Ultimately the
king and the princes were captured. After thus attaining his object, the conqueror
restored their country to his defeated foes. A chieftain of Rohana, Manabharana
the younger, had attempted to turn the war between Parrakkama and Gaja Bahu
to its own advantage ; he was conquered in like manner, and also left in possession
of his land. Both of these conquered princes appointed the victor as their suc-
cessor. Thus Parrakkama became master of the whole island, although at first he
had sternly to suppress repeated revolts, especially among the freedom-loving
inhabitants of the south and in the western province of Mahatittha.
The king's strong hand soon made itself felt beyond the boundaries of his
kingdom. For a long period he had been in friendly relations with Ramanya
(Lower Burmah). Vijaya Bahu I had invited Burmese monks to Ceylon (p. 505),
and both countries were united by peaceful commercial relations. However, dur-
ing the gloomy period of the last Singhalese king, Arimaddana, the ruler of
Ramanya had attempted to profit by the unfavourable condition of Ceylon. A tax
was laid upon the exportation of elephants, which made the purchase of these ani-
mals almost impossible for the impoverished Ceylon. The usual presents were
withheld from the Singhalese ambassadors, the ships of Ceylon were forbidden
to land in Burmah, and the emissaries sent from Polonnaruwa were finally robbed
and imprisoned. Parrakkama then sent a strong expedition to Ramanya; his
ships were greatly damaged by a storm, but the army succeeded in defeating the
Burmese troops, storming the capital, and killing the king. Parrakkama's supre-
macy was proclaimed, and peace was only granted upon the condition of an
indemnity to compensate for former vexations, to which was added the obligation
of a yearly tribute.
In Southern India also (cf. p. 387) Parrakkama avenged the wrongs that had
been committed against Ceylon in former years. The struggles between the
Cholas and the Pandyas (Tamils) had continued since the time of Vijaya Bahu I.
Under their king KulaSekhara the Cholas had fiercely besieged King Pandu
in his capital of Madura. It was not to the interest of Ceylon to see a great
Dravidian kingdom in place of the numerous petty States, who might wear one
another out by internal struggles ; Parrakkama therefore sent to the help of the
Tamil king a strong army under Lankapura and Jagad Vijaya Nayaka. Before
the arrival of this force, Madura had fallen and King Pandu had been killed ;
however, the Singhalese defeated the Cholas and devastated their country. King
Kula^ekhara was besieged in his fortress of Rajina and was barely able to save
himself by flight. He was forced to conclude peace upon terms highly disadvan-
tageous to himself. The Pflndya kingdom was restored, Prince Vira Pandu was
installed in Madura as king, and a Tamil coinage with the head of Parrakkama
was struck to commemorate the campaign. The captured Cholas were sent to
Ceylon, where they were forced to work at the restoration of those same religious
buildings which their forefathers had destroyed in their plundering raids.
True to the proverb of his choice, " What is there in the world that a persever-
ing man cannot perform ? " Parrakkama gave his devastated island a fresh lease
of prosperity. As chieftain of a small district, he had once observed, " In a country
like this not the least drop of water that falls from heaven should be allowed to
run into the sea until it has first done good service to mankind." This principle
India] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 509
was now vigorously put into practice throughout his great kingdom. He had
tanks built or restored by thousands ; the greatest of these (for example, the " Sea
of Parrakkama ") was equal in extent to the lake of the Four Forest Cantons,
More than five hundred new canals were made, and several thousand ruined
waterways were reconstructed. Malarious swamps and impenetrable jungles were
transformed into miles of flourishing rice fields and orchards ; towns and villages
arose from their ruins, with a dense and prosperous population. The decaying
capital of Polonnaruwa rose to new splendour and was provided with everything
that could conduce to comfort and luxury. The ruler was not forgetful of the
old and famous capital of Anuradhapura, the palaces which the founder of the
empire had erected, the shrines consecrated by Mahinda and his successors;;
and the monasteries and relic shrines were cleared of their jungle overgrowth and
restored. The administration of the country was reorganised, and a mild and
equable system of taxation introduced. The disorders which had broken out
in the church were checked, and the morality of the priesthood improved.
Parrakkama even succeeded in reconciling that feud between the chief sects which
had lasted for a thousand years, and in unifying the doctrine ; " the attempt to
bring about this union seemed no less desperate than an attempt to raise the
mountain of Meru from its foundations."
(e) The Decay of the Kingdom and the Church (1200-1500}. — Parrakkama
the Great was succeeded by his nephew Vijaya Bahu II (1197-1198), a weakling
characterised by the monks as a great scholar and poet ; after a reign of one year
he was assassinated. Then began a period of the greatest confusion. During the
eighteen years immediately following the death of the great king the empire saw
no less than fifteen different rulers, with reigns of one, nine, and seventeen days,
three, seven, nine, and twelve months. At least five were murdered, six were
deposed, and in some cases blinded. A motley row of figures passes before us,
Singhalese, Kalingas (Telugu), Cholas, and Pandyas. The Kalinga prince, Magha
(1215-1236), who seized the island with an army of twenty thousand warriors, was
the first ruler able to secure his position upon the throne ; at the same time his rule
proved a devastating scourge to the unfortunate country which had never yet been
subjected to so fearful a visitation. In the south alone a few capable leaders were
able to maintain their independence in the mountain fortresses defended alike by
nature and art. Of these petty principalities, the most important was Dambadenya,
where Vijaya Bahu III (1236-1240), who traced his descent from Vijaya Bahu I,
had established himself ; from this base of operations he was able to subdue the
province of Malaya. His son Parrakkama Bahu III (1240—1275) drove out the
Dravidians in 1255, almost annihilating them, together with the Chola king,
Somes"wara. However, he was forced to struggle with other enemies, for the
weakness of Ceylon had attracted the Malays, who were especially active at that
period (p. 543). Their leader, Chandrabhaim, twice invaded the country and
devastated " the whole of Lanka ; " the Malays, however, never succeeded in per-
manently establishing themselves on the island. In the works of peace, Parrak-
kama II rivalled his great predecessor. During the Dravidian rule proprietary
titles had been lost or confused, and a redistribution of the country among laity
and monks was now undertaken. Roads were laid down, tanks and canals re-
stored, and Polonnaruwa, which had been almost entirely ruined, was rebuilt ; in
510 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
Anuradhapura works of restoration were begun upon the main buildings, which
had been severely damaged. Meanwhile the so-called monks had plunged into
every kind of vice, and the old quarrel between the brotherhoods broke out with
renewed fury. Here, too, the king's action improved the situation ; the worst of
the monks were removed, the hostile sects were reconciled, and the introduction
of ordained monks from the Chola country gave the order an infusion of fresh
blood.
Vijaya Bahu IV, the successor of Parrakkama II, was murdered by one of his
generals two years later, though the murderer also received short shrift. In default
of a powerful ruler, the people quickly relapsed into their former state of misery,
and to complete the tale of their suffering a terrible famine broke out. A Pandit
army so suddenly invaded the country that even the greatest relic of the Buddhist
world, the tooth of Buddha (p. 505), could not be hidden, but was carried off
to Madura with other booty. The tooth was not recovered until the reign of Par-
rakkama Bahu III (1288-1293), who made a pilgrimage in person to the Panclya
court to beg for it, and was undoubtedly forced to make considerable concessions
as the condition of its restoration.
This raid of the Pandyas seems to have been the last Dravidian invasion of
Ceylon ; a few years later (1311), the Mohammedans under Kafur advanced from
the north to the Palk Straits (p. 425), and from the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury the Pandyas became tributary to the kingdom of Bijayanagar (p. 429). The
Singhalese chronicles make no reference to wars with the Dravidians later than the
year 1290, though that race were in possession of the extreme north of the island,
where at a later period an independent Tamil kingdom arose with the capital of
Jafna. The interior of the northern half of the island, the former royal domains
(Pihittiratta), had become a desolate wilderness. In consequence of the incessant
civil wars, the ruling kings removed their capitals further within the mountains,
and, like themselves, Buddha's tooth was in an almost chronic condition of migra-
tion. Buddhism hardly existed even in name. Hence even up to the time of
Parrakkama IV (about 1300), only the very scantiest historical record was kept in
the monasteries, and from that date until the middle of the eighteenth century
historical writing ceased entirely ; it was not until the time of Kirti Sri raja Simha
(1747-1780) that the gaps were filled up with the scanty material to hand and
with the aid of tradition.
D. THE LATER HISTORY OF CEYLOX (SINCE 1500)
OF the twenty-three kings who reigned between the two above-mentioned
monarchs, we have but very little information, and that for the most part un-
reliable. The records become somewhat more definite at the time of Eaja Siriiha I
(1586-1592) ; he secured the throne by murdering his father, and being a fanatical
worshipper of £iva so persecuted the Buddhist doctrine and its adherents that many
monks threw off the yellow robe.
(a) The Portuguese in Ceylon. — " In those days certain merchants carried on
trade in the harbour of Kolamba, which they continued until in the course of time
they had grown very powerful. The Parangi [Portuguese] were collectively base
unbelievers, cruel and hard hearted " (Malm wails' a). In the year 1498 Vasco da
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 511
Gama had cast anchor before Caliqut; seventeen years later came the destruction
of the Arab trade, which had hitherto monopolised the valuable products of Asia,
especially the spice exports ; Ormuz, Malacca, and Goa became the foundations of
the Portuguese power in the Indian seas (p. 450). Portuguese ships had visited
Ceylon as early as 1505 ; in 1515 a fleet sailed to the island from Calicut under
Lopez Soarez, and the Singhalese monarch in Kotta gave permission to the admiral
to found a permanent trading station in the harbour of Colombo, near his resi-
dence. If the king hoped to gain powerful friends by this means, he was soon
bitterly undeceived. He was forced to become a Portuguese vassal, and to agree to
the payment of a yearly tribute of cinnamon, precious stones, and elephants. Hos-
tilities were the early and the natural result. The kings removed their capitals to
the mountains of the interior, first to Sitawaka, then to Kandy, but in vain ; the
war continued without interruption, and every Portuguese campaign penetrated
further into the country.
By degrees, however, the difficulties afforded by the precipitous highland slopes,
the jungles of the primeval forest, the dangers of the climate, and the military
strength of the hitjhlanders increased. The latter learnt the arts of strategy,
O O Ov *
tactics, and the use of weapons from their enemies ; they had of old been famous
for their skill in metal working, and were able to keep their guns and cannons
in better repair. Mayadhana and his son Kaja Simha I vigorously repulsed the
attacks of the Portuguese ; of Kaja Simha II, Mahawans'a says, " As a lion bursts
into a herd of elephants, or as flakes of wool are swept away by the wind, so was
the enemy seized by fear and fled before the dauntless king." The Portuguese
were never able to establish themselves in the interior ; their only established pos-
sessions were the fortresses of Negarnbo, Colombo, Galle, Battikaloa, Trincomali,
with the land immediately adjoining these settlements. They operated with some
success against the Tamil kingdom, which, occupied the northern extremity of the
island, and a small strip of land upon the east coast. The capital of Jafna was
stormed in 1560, and the sacred tooth fell into the hands of the Portuguese. In
vain did the king of Pegu offer four hundred thousand gold pieces for the relic.
The Portuguese valued the destruction of that fragment of bone at a higher price ;
it was pounded in a mortar by the Archbishop of Goa, Dom Gaspar, burnt in the
fire, and the ashes thrown into the river. Tooth worship was, however, not ex-
tirpated by this means ; in no long time a second "tooth " appeared in Kandy, which
was said to have been hidden and buried during a Portuguese invasion, while the
conquerors were said to have destroyed only an imitation of the real tooth. On
the first conquest of Jafna the Portuguese contented themselves with depriving
the sultan of the island of Manaar and of all his treasures, and imposing a heavy
tribute upon him. In 1617 the town was again stormed upon the reputed out-
break of hostilities against the Christians ; the sultan was beheaded and his land
declared Portuguese territory.
The story of the destruction of Buddha's tooth is typical of the religious fana-
ticism of the Portuguese. Every ship brought, together with soldiers greedy for
plunder, bands of monks who were anxious to spread Christianity by any means
under their power. Their greatest success was the conversion of a Singhalese
king to the bosom of the one true church. " The king Dharma Pauli ESja em-
braced the Christian religion and was baptised under the name of Don Juan
Pandaura ; many nobles of Kotta were converted with him. From this time
512 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
onward the wives of the nobles, and also those of the lower castes, such as the
barbers, fishers, humawas, and chalyas, became Christians, and lived with the
Christians for the sake of the Portuguese money " (Rajawali). This apostate king
appointed Philip II of Spain and Portugal his heir, and from that time the Por-
tuguese kings have added to their many titles that of " Lord of Ceylon."
The soil was well prepared for the conversion of the Singhalese to Christianity.
The old religion had degenerated to the lowest possible point ; Raja Simha, the
worshipper of £iva (p. 510), had persecuted his Buddhist subjects. Repeated
importations of foreign monks had been unable to check the decay of Singha-
lese Buddhism ; the people had grown utterly indifferent to religious questions.
Within the Portuguese districts members of the lower castes could only exist by
keeping on good terms with their masters, and consequently the people came over
to the Catholic Church in numbers. High-sounding Portuguese names are still to
be found among the modern Singhalese, the descendants of those converts who
adopted the family names of their masters upon their change of faith. The Por-
tuguese exemplified their own interpretation of Christianity by practising inhuman
extortion upon every subject within their domains. In this manner they hoped to
indemnify themselves for the comparatively small profits accruing from their trade.
The cultivation of the most valuable product of the island, cinnamon, was retarded
by the bitter hatred of the foreigners, and confined to narrow districts in the im-
mediate neighbourhood of the fortified settlements of Colombo and Galle. Spices
"were collected sword in hand and exported under the guns of the fortresses"
(J. E. Tennent). Trade rapidly decreased, and the receipts failed to balance
the expenditure incurred by the Portuguese during one hundred and fifty years
of unbroken war.
(5) The Dutch in Ceylon. — The decay of Portuguese trade in Ceylon was but
one of the many phenomena apparent upon the decline of Portugal. The spirit of
enterprise which had inspired the country during the fifteenth century and at the
outset of the sixteenth had faded, the power of the little country was wasted by
constant wars in deadly climates, the people were impoverished, and the oppression
of the Inquisition lay upon all minds. Portugal's career as a colonial power was
at an end. Her place in Ceylon was taken by the Dutch. In 1602 Joris van Spil-
bergen landed in the island with two ships to conclude an alliance with the angry
Singhalese king against the Portuguese ; the king sent two ambassadors " into
their beautiful land " (Mahawaiis'a) and persuaded the people to come to Ceylon
with many ships. In the meanwhile the two powers concluded a convention in
1609 for the expulsion of the Portuguese from the island; however, neither the
feeble king Vimila Dhamma Surya I (1592-1620) nor the Dutch felt themselves
strong enough for immediate action. The war was not prosecuted with any energy
until the time of llaja Siriiha II ; the Dutch then captured one Portuguese fortress
after another. Ultimately (1658), after an armistice of ten years Colombo and
Jafna fell, and the Portuguese were definitely ousted by the Dutch.
The new nationality conducted their policy in a wholly different spirit ; they
were primarily merchants, and their chief object was to avoid any possible dis-
turbance to their trade. They had originally agreed to send an embassy to the
king at Kandy every year. The king treated these with contempt and scorn ; on
•lill'erent occasions the ambassadors were beaten, imprisoned, or even put to death,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 513
outrages which the Dutch patiently bore. On one occasion only, during the reign
of Kirti Sri Raja Simha, did they attempt a punitive expedition with Malay sol-
diers ; Kandy was captured, and the king was forced to flee, taking with him the
tooth of Buddha. However, sickness and famine broke out among the troops and
their line of retreat was cut off ; many soldiers succumbed to the attacks of the
mountaineers, while others were scattered and lost their way in the inhospitable
forests.
Raja Simha II was succeeded by a number of weak rulers who favoured the
monks, though they were unable to improve the position of the order. Sri Wira
Parakkama Narinda (1701-1734) built the Dalada Maligawa, a temple yet hi
•existence, to enshrine the sacred tooth, and decorated its outer walls with thirty-
two Jatakas (histories of the birth of Buddha) ; however, under his successor,
Vijaya Raja Simha (1734-1747), the monks had entirely disappeared. The doc-
trine itself had degenerated into a mixture of Hinduism, devil worship, and
Buddhist conventionalities. The connection of the island with Southern India
(a large number of the rulers of Kandy married princesses from Madura) had
enabled the Brahman gods to gain the pre-eminence in Ceylon ; their images were
carried in procession in company with the statues of Buddha, and when a king
built a Buddhist shrine he erected with it a temple dedicated to Siva or Vishnu.
It was not until the time of Kirti Sri Raja Simha (1747-1780) that Buddhism
was purified of its hollow formalities and revived ; two embassies brought over
each a chapter of ten monks (the first under the high priest Upali) from Siam.
The religious toleration of the Dutch and the English has since enabled Buddhism
to extend its area and regain some of its power in Ceylon, though at the same
time the doctrine has been largely modified by the worship of Brahman gods and
Dravidian demons.
The Dutch at first derived great profit from their trade in the products of
•Ceylon. The cinnamon plantations captured from the Portuguese were not in-
creased ; but the careful cultivation of the plants raised the value of the bark to
an unprecedented height, and high prices were maintained by a strict monopoly.
These measures, however, eventually led to the decay of the trade. The height of
prices attracted the rivalry of other plantations upon other islands. An army of
subordinate officials swallowed up a large proportion of the profit, and dishonesty
was increased by the scanty salaries paid. The cinnamon trade, which originally
brought such high profits, at length scarcely succeeded in paying its expenses.
(c) The English in Ceylon. — The trade of Ceylon chiefly suffered from the
decline of Holland as a sea power. The capture of the Portuguese possessions
marks the zenith of Dutch influence, and Dutch trade was at that time five times
greater than that of England. "While, however, the struggle for Colombo and
Jafna was in progress, England dealt a deadly stroke at her rival; in 1651-1660
the Navigation Acts were passed, which forbade to all foreign ships the carrying
of goods between England and her colonies (Vol. VII, p. 98). In the year 1792
the proportion of trade in the hands of these rivals was as two to five. When the
French troops advanced upon Holland in 1794 England took from the Dutch not
only its trading fleet, which was valued at ten million pounds, but also all its
colonies at the Cape, in Malacca, in Cochin, in the Moluccas, etc. The occupation
of Ceylon was not a difficult task for England. The British governor of Madras,
VOL. II — 33
514 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
Lord Hobart (p. 272), sent a fleet to the island under Blankert in 1795. Several
fortresses fell into the English hands forthwith, and Colombo, the seat of Dutch
government, was surrendered without a blow by the governor, J. von Angelbeck,
who had been bribed to this end, with all other fortresses as yet untouched and
with all supplies and the chest (containing two and a half million pounds ; Febru-
ary 15, 1796). However, the administration of the East India Company was at
that time even worse than the last period of Dutch government. At the end of a
year a general rising against the British broke out, whereupon England took pos-
session of the colony and placed it immediately under the crown.
The first governor was Frederick North (afterward Earl of Guilford), who was
sent out in 1798. He naturally could do nothing less than imitate the progress
which had been attained on the mainland at that date (p. 472). For this purpose
he entered into negotiations with Pelemeh Talaweh, the first minister of the Sin-
ghalese king, Sri Eaja Adhiraja Siriiha, for the betrayal of the country (1780-
1798). A strong division of English troops was to be sent to Kandy under the
pretext of forming a peaceful escort to an ambassador, and, if necessary, the king
was to be induced by force to grant the English desires. The troops, however,
encountered many natural obstacles upon the inarch, not to speak of opposition on
the part of the natives; a very small proportion reached Kandy, and were forced
to retire without accomplishing their object. As this carefully engineered plan
had been a failure, force was openly employed in 1802 ; at a more favourable
season three thousand men under McDowell advanced upon the capital, which
they occupied after the king had fled. The troops under Major Davie suffered
greatly from fever, and the remnant was surprised and slaughtered to the last man
by the Singhalese in 1803. The continuance of war in Europe prevented imme-
diate reprisals by the English ; but the Singhalese king, Sri Wikkama Eaja Simha
(1798-1815), had grown suspicious to the point of madness, after the treachery of
his minister, and treated his subjects with the greatest cruelty, thus playing into-
the English hands. The animosity of his people rose to such a height that in
1815 the English were able to occupy Kandy with little trouble. The king was
captured on the 18th of February in the village of Beaumury and confined in
Madras until his death in 1832. A gathering of the chieftains transferred the Sin-
ghalese kingdom to the British crown in March, 1816. Since 1895 Sir Joseph
West Eidgeway has been governor of the island.
4. INDO-CHINA
A. CONFIGURATION
FURTHER India forms the most easterly of the three great projections which
advance southward from Asia. Equal in area to the south of Nearer India
(830,586 square miles) it is bounded by China on the north, by India on the
northwest ; the western frontier in all its length is formed by the east coast of
the Sea of Bengal, its southern frontier is the sea between the mainland and the
islands of Java and Borneo, while the China Sea washes its eastern frontier (see
the map, p. 538). The course of its civilization has been inspired by impulses
(U-rived not from over seas, but from the two civilized countries of India and
China; hence the justification for the name Indo-China.
/-*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 515
(a) The Country. — The configuration of Further India regarded as a super-
ficies is due to the existence of parallel mountain ranges running for the most part
from north to south ; these beginning in the mountain country between Eastern
Tibet and Yunnan, Kwangsi and Kwangtung, the southern provinces of China to the
north of the twenty-fifth degree of latitude, diverge southward. At the roots of these
mountains, in gorges often three thousand feet deep, run those four mighty rivers
which rise in Tibet, afterward diverging fan-wise to hurry on to the different seas.
From its passage through the mountains eastward the Yang-tse-kiang naturally
forms the most important line of communication in the Celestial Empire. The
Brahmaputra turns westward through the broad valley of Assam to the Ganges
delta, and only the Salwen and Mekong, running southward, can be said properly
to belong to the peninsula of Indo-China. Eastward and westward and also
between these rivers parallel streams are interspersed, the sources of which begin
at a point somewhat to the south of the spot where the main streams pass the
gorges ; of these the most westward is the Irawaddi, which rises in the mountain
land eastward of Assam; the greater part of its course is navigable and with
its tributaries it facilitates communication with Yunnan, passing through the fruit-
ful plains of Chittagong and Arakan and forming one of the greatest deltas in the
world at its mouth in the Gulf of Pegu. This river is divided from the Salwen by
no greater obstacle than a low-lying range of hills running north and south, which
eventually turn it away from the narrow coast district of Tennasserim and direct
its course to central Further India. Further to the east is the Menam, the main
river of Siam, which also is the sole possession of Indo-China ; its sources do not
extend beyond the twentieth degree of latitude north ; to these must be added the
Mekong, rising in Tibet, the delta of which extends eastward into the China Sea.
All these streams have fruitful deltas and plains upon their banks, but are impas-
sable to communication, navigation on any large scale being excluded by the
rapids and shallows immediately above their mouths. The mountain chain run-
ning from north to south forms a sharp line of demarcation to the east of the
Mekong between Central and Eastern Further India, Cochin-China, Annam, and
Tongking ; the Songka or Eed Eiver is the only stream flowing northward in
Tongking, a district generally narrow which forms the eastern third of Indo-China ;
it is, however, more navigable than the central rivers and forms the most convenient
route of access to Yunnan and its mineral wealth.
The climate is that of a tropical Asiatic district under the monsoons. In the
alluvial plains of the valleys and deltas all natural growths flourish with inexhaus-
tible fertility, and these from an early age have been the points of departure for
Indo-Chinese civilization. The highlands further to the north are less richly
dowered by nature and have retained for thousands of years their influence upon
tribal formation ; here from a remote antiquity was the home of powerful half-bar-
baric tribes who were driven out by upheavals among the restless nomadic hordes
of Central Asia or attracted by the riches of the southern lowlands, which they
repeatedly invaded, bringing infusions of new blood and valuable material for the
work of civilization.
(5) The Peoples of Indo- China. — Hence even at the present day racial stocks
displaying anthropological and ethnological differences can be plainly recognised.
As direct descendants of the earliest inhabitants we have three races belonging to
516 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter ir
different anthropological groups : the Nigritic, the Malay, and Indonesian types.
The Nigritic people, who are related to the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, to
the Aetas of the Philippines, etc., are now known as Sakai and Semangs and inhabit
small districts within the peninsula of Malacca. The Malays are identical with
the inhabitants of the islands, to which they were expelled at a comparatively late
period (cf. below, p. 543) ; tribes which have maintained their purity of blood
also occupy certain districts in the Malay peninsula, while others mixed with later
invaders (Cham) occupy extensive tracts in the lowlands of Siam and Annam ;
their original settlements seem to have been the lowlands of Indo-China. On the
other hand, the highlands were inhabited by Indonesians, whose nearest relations
are now to be found in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines, Borneo
(Dyaks), Sumatra (Batta), etc. The modern representatives of the Indonesian race
within Indo-China are the Nagas on the frontier between Assam and Burmah, the
Selongs (in the Mergui archipelago), the Moi (half-wild tribes between the Mekong
and the coast of Assam and between Yunnan and Cochin-China), the Kui (in
Southeastern Siam and Northwestern Cambodia), the Mons or Talaings (in the
deltas of the Burmese rivers, formerly distributed throughout Lower Burmah).
The highlands, which extend further northward from Eastern Tibet to the
southern provinces of China, were in antiquity inhabited by a powerful race closely
allied to the Indonesians, who may be generally comprehended in the tribal fami-
lies of the Thai ( " Free "). From this point repeated invasions took place into the
lowlands at a later period ; about 1250 this people were settled in the principality
of Xieng-Mai ; under Kama Khomheng (1283) the more southerly kingdom of
Sukhodaya is mentioned in inscriptions ; driven westward by the resistance of the
Brahman kings of Cambodia, the Thai are found in possession of the lower Menam
(capital town, Ayuthia) about 1350. The descendants of these immigrants after
fusion with the former inhabitants of the district form the chief element in the
population of those States of Further India which reached any high degree of cul-
ture. It is impossible to decide whether the Cham are an early branch of the Thai or
whether they originated from the Indonesians ; they found the Malays settled in
the lowlands and borrowed then- language (which is in close relation to the dif-
ferent Malay dialects of the present day) ; at the same time their physical charac-
teristics display marked divergences from the Malay type and approach more
nearly to the Indonesian. The first glimmer of historical information shows them
as the settled people of a kingdom which embraced South Tongkiug, Annam, and
a great part of Central Indo-China. A second wave of migration advancing within
our era brought the Khmers into the fruitful land ; here they too mixed with the
population in possession, the Malays (brachycephalous), and with the Indonesians
(hence the wavy hair of the Kui), and raised their State of Cambodia to high pro-
sperity at the expense of the Champa kingdom. By later invasions of the Thai
their district was reduced to its present condition, the smaller State of Cambodia
and Southern Cochin-China.
From this cradle of nations new races advanced east and south and expelled
the Moi, the Malays, and Khmers from their settlements ; these were the Anna-
mese. At the present day they are settled from the delta of Tongking to Southern
Cochin-china, and have been strongly modified by infusions of Chinese blood, while
their civilization is almost entirely Chinese. Probably the same wave brought a
second stream of the Thai forward about the same date, the Lao race in the moun-
Ind
«•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 517
tains of what is now North Siam, and a third tribe, the Burmese, who are linguisti-
cally related to the Tibetans ; these tribes advanced from the mountain land at the
east of Tibet to the lower courses of the Irawaddi, where they settled, driving to
the coast the Mons, who show linguistic affinities with the Annamese. About 1000
A. D. they were followed by the Shan (now settled in the mountain districts of
Upper Burmah) who still call themselves Thai (" Free "), and further to the east
by the Siamese, who overthrew the supremacy of the former Khmer immigrants in
Cambodia and formed a highly prosperous kingdom of their own. The physical
characteristics of all these tribes show that they are not free from fusion with
other races.
B. THE PKEHISTORIC PERIOD AND EARLY HISTORY OF INDO-CHINA
THE prehistoric period of Further India is shrouded in gloom, though a few
vague and general indications may be derived from the sciences of comparative
philology and anthropology. These indications alike point to early racial commix-
ture and fusion. From a philological point of view, several primordial groups
stand out in isolation. The dialects of the dark inhabitants of the peninsula at
the present day are as yet but little known. However, the special characteristics
of the Malay group of languages show that this branch diverged from the original
stem in a remote antiquity. The remaining dialects of the people of Further India
belong to the isolating family of languages, and point to the existence at an ex-
tremely early age of two distinct tribes which may be designated as Tibeto-Burmese
and as Thai-Chinese, according to their modern distribution. We have no means
of deciding where the first ancestors of these groups may have dwelt. We can
only venture to assert that the separation of these primitive peoples, with whom
we are concerned in the history of Further India, took place in the north. During
the later history of Indo-China, the Thai preserved their racial purity, as they do at
the present day in the mountainous frontier between Further India and China.
Philological evidence points to the fact that an early bifurcation of the Thai formed
the tribes of Mon-Annam, which were driven into their present remote habitations
by the invasions in later centuries of the Thai. They were then known as Mons
(Pegu) and Annamites (the east coast of Indo-China; there they are known as
Yuons). The Cham also broke away from the Thai at an early period, and were
strongly influenced by the Malay population, with whom they came in contact,
both in respect of language and physical structure. Within recent and historical
times they were followed by the Khmers, the Laos, Shans, and Siamese.
Upon the dates and the history of these ancient racial movements we have no
information whatever. Chinese histories refer, indeed, to an embassy sent from
Indo-China, probably from Tongking, in the year 1110 B. c. to the imperial Chinese
court of the Chau (p. 70). In 214 B. c. and 109 A. D. Chinese generals founded
dynasties of their own in Tongking. However, we have no other information upon
the general history of those ages. The wild imagination of the natives has so
transformed the native legends that though these go back to the creation of the
world, they give us no historical material of any value whatever.
It is not until the first centuries of our era that the general darkness is some-
what relieved. On the north frontier and in the east we find a restless movement
and a process of struggle with varying success between the Chinese and the native
518 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
races, while in the south and west Hindu civilization is everywhere victorious.
The most important source of our knowledge upon the affairs of Further India in
those ages is Ptolemy's description of the world, dating from the first half of the
second century A. D. The explanation of many of his statements is due to the
energy of G. E. Gerini (Journal of the Koyal Asiatic Society, 1897). The larger
part of the south was occupied by the Champa kingdom of the Chams, with its
capital at Champapura. To the east and northeast were settled the Khmers,
who, according to an ancient tradition of Cambodia, had advanced southwards from
their northern settlements and come into connection with the Chams. However,
Ptolemy also informs us that at his time the coast-line of Further India was
inhabited throughout its length by the Sindoi (Hindus). As their importance in
Indo-Cliina was at that time great enough for the Alexandrine geographer to
describe them as a race of wide distribution, the advance of Hindu civilization
must have taken place at least some centuries previously.
The introduction of Brahman civilization was merely a victory for a few repre-
sentatives of a higher culture. The physical characteristics of the population of
Further India were but little influenced by this new infusion. The movement can
hardly have begun before the period at which the Brahmans colonised Orissa (p. 372).
From this point Brahmanism apparently made its way to Indo-China by sea. On
the one hand, the Brahmans did not advance along the land route, long hidden and
leading through the Ganges delta and Assam, until the second half of the present
millennium, at which time Brahmanism had long since fallen into decay in Indo-
China. On the other hand, a proof of the fact that the colonisation was of trans-
marine origin is the predominance of Hinduism upon the coast (cf. the statement
of Ptolemy above). The movement to Indo-China cannot have started from
Southern India for the reason that at that period Brahmanism had taken but
little hold on the south, and the transmission of civilization from those shores is
therefore extremely improbable. It was not until a much later period that com-
munication between the two countries began, the results of which are apparent in
the Dravidian influences visible in the later temple buildings of Indo-China,
Further evidence for the northern origin of Indo-Chinese Brahmanism are the
names of the more important towns of early Indonesia, which are almost entirely
borrowed from the Sanscrit names of the towns in the Ganges district, and also the
desire of the Indonesian rulers to retrace their origin to the mythical sun and moon
dynasties of Madhya-desa (p. 371).
The maritime route led straight to Burmah, but Indian civilization at the moment
found that district less favourable to its development than that of the great and
more hospitable Champa kingdom in the central south. The Gulf of Ligor and
the coast and the banks of the great rivers of Cambodia seem to have been the
central points of Brahman influence. This influence was less important in the
eastern part of the peninsula of Further India, which was both further from
the Brahman starting point, and more subject to Chinese civilization. From
Upper Burmah to Cochin-China countless temple ruins are to be found at the
present day, with rich ornamental sculptures and Sanscrit inscriptions, bearing
evidence of the force of Brahman influence in earlier ages. Every year important
discoveries are made, especially in those districts which the French have opened
up. According to E. Aymonier, most of the traditional names of the kings of
Cambodia are to be read in inscriptions in their Sanscrit form from the third
h
«<
fa
o
•<
Q
O
O
W
co
CO
W
ffi
H
fa
O
; ; \/* ^w
W S 3
z§ ^
- o 5
Bfl o
wg I
P °
O
8L
w
z
o
H
CO
CO
CO
£
Q
ffi
Q
Q
D
CQ
EXPLANATION OF THE PICTURE OVERLEAF
On passing through the gate opposite to the pagoda of Vat Saket in Bangkok, the capital of
Siani, the street leads the visitor directly to the pagoda of Vat Suthat. Within this Buddha tem-
ple (B6t Phra) we see the reverend ancient master of the three worlds (tri loka thera ; Sanscr.,
sthaviru) and the Buddha-pupils (savaka saiigha) assembled round the Siamese Buddha, who is
discoursing to them (somana Khodom ; Sanscr., 9ramana Gautama = Asket Gautama, or the last
Buddha, the fourth Buddha of the present dispensation, in short, the historical Buddha). The
figures are life-size, dressed in the garment worn by the inferior Buddhist priests (talapoin), and
are arranged in four rows. In the background is seated the figure, larger than life-size, of the
Sakya-Muni. Each of the Savoks (Sanscr., 9ravaka ; Pali, savaka) bears his name inscribed on a
marble tablet, which is cemented to the lower part of his statue. The dialect of these Tai
inscriptions is that of Sukhodaya.
(After Lucien Fournereau. " Le Slain ancien." in Vol. XXVII of the " Annales du Musee Guimet."
Paris, 1895.)
India-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 519
century A. D. to 1108. At a later period within this district Sanscrit writing gave
way to the native Khmer script. Inscribed memorials, carvings, and building
generally, make it clear that 6iva and his son, Ganesa (p. 411), the god with the
elephant head, were the most widely distributed of the Brahman gods. The images
and the symbols (Lingam) of these gods are far more numerous than those of the
other figures of Hindu mythology. However, at the same time Vishnu was highly
venerated. The most important and beautiful Brahman temples of Further India
are dedicated to this god, instances being the temples of Angkor Thorn and of
Angkor Wat, built, as we learn from the evidence of the inscriptions, in 825.
At the time when the early exponents of Brahmanism advanced to China, Bud-
dhism had also taken root in their native land, being then considered merely a
special variant of the belief in the old gods. Hence, with the transmission of
Brahmanism, the seeds of Buddhism were undoubtedly sown in Indo-China. As
Buddha himself was received into the cult of Vishnu as being the incarnation of
this god, so, during the flourishing period of Brahmanism in Champa and Cambodia,
his images were erected and worshipped within the temples dedicated to Siva or
Vishnu.
Buddhism advanced to Indo-China by two routes. The first of these led straight
from India and Ceylon to the opposite coast. According to the tradition, Buddha-
ghosha (pp. 415, 505) in the fifth century A. D. after making his translation of
the sacred scriptures into Pali, introduced the doctrine of Buddha into the country,
starting from the island of Ceylon. Eesemblances between the script of Cambodia
and the Pali of Ceylon testify to the contact of the civilization and religion of these
two countries. Subsequently, however (previously, according to Taw Sein Tho),
the northern or Sanscrit developments of Buddhism (p. 409) had advanced to
Further India by way of Central and Eastern Asia. The doctrine in this form was
first transmitted to the vigorous and half-barbaric tribes of the mountainous high-
lands, who seem to have accepted it readily. At any rate, the Thai races (Laos,
Shans, and Siamese), who migrated southward at a later period, were undoubtedly
zealous Buddhists. Their advance about the end of the first and second centuries
A. D. implies a definite retrogression on the part of Brahmanism in Indo-China.
The Brahman gods decay, and the temples sink into ruins. Upon their sites arise
buildings which, in their poverty of decoration and artistic conception, correspond
to the humility of Buddhist theology and metaphysics (see the plate, " Buddha and
his Pupils, sculptured figures in the interior of a Siamese pagoda, Wat Sut hat ").
In Cambodia alone did Brahmanism maintain its position for a time, as is evi-
denced by buildings and inscriptions from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries.
About the year 700 the northern type of Buddhism made an unobtrusive entrance,
and King Jayawarman V (968-1002) undertook reforms on behalf of Buddhism.
However, it was not until 1295 that the schools fell into the hands of the Bud-
dhists, and Buddhism did not become the State religion in Cambodia before 1320.
At that date, the Southern, or Pali, Buddhism had also found adherents in the
country.
Brahmanism, however, had been very deeply rooted, as is proved by the nume-
rous Sanscrit words borrowed by the modern languages of Further India, and also by
many special practices which have persisted to the present day. Vishnu, Siva, and
Ganesa, though no longer worshipped as gods, were honoured as heroes, and their
images in bronze and stone decorated the temples side by side with the images of
520 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
Buddha, as, for instance, in the temple of Wat-Bot-Phram at Bangkok. Vishnu
remains one of the heraldic devices on the royal banner of Siarn, and the kings of
this empire show special favour to the Brahmans in their districts who cling to
the old beliefs. They alone are allowed to prepare the holy water, and play a
predominant part in many palace ceremonies. The aristocracy of Cambodia still
lavs claim to certain privileges which remind us of the Brahman caste system
(Kshatriyas).
C. THE HISTORY OF IKDO-GHIXA
FROM the times when, thanks to Ptolemy, a more definite light is thrown
upon the affairs of Further India, the general history of Indo-China appears char-
acterised by a tripartite division corresponding to the three main geographical
districts of the peninsula ; we have to-day the western district facing the Indian
Ocean, the central district watered by the rivers of the Salwen, Menam, and
Mekong, and the eastern district most easily accessible from China, and facing
the Chinese Sea.
(a) Western Indo-China (BurmaK). — The earliest sources of Burmese history
are of Chinese origin. From the Chinese annals we hear of struggles with the
inhabitants of the northwest of Further India during the first century B. c. In
these struggles the old capital of Tagong ceased to exist, and further Chinese
incursions took place between 166 and 241 A. D. The earlier history of the country
rests solely upon vague tradition. These traditions enable us dimly to observe the
persistence of an incessant struggle between petty kingdoms which rise to power
and again disappear. From this constant change a number of larger and more
tenacious bodies politic originate. Such is the State of Arakan on the northern
coast, which was colonised from Burmah, but strongly influenced by India by reason
of its neighbourhood to that country. Under its king, Gaw-Laya, it held the pre-
dominance over Bengal, Pagan, Pegu, and Siam about 1138, and about 1450 it
advanced from Sandoweh, beyond its central point of Akyab, to Chittagong. On
the south we have the State of Malaya Desa, so called after the principal tribe,
and, more important than either of the foregoing, the two States of Burmah and
Pegu. The history of these latter is the history of an incessant struggle between
two races, — the Burmese, who advanced from the north, and the native Mons
(Talaing; Pegu).
The earliest mythology of the Burmese speaks of Prome in the fifth century
A. D. as the capital of a primordial kingdom. At a later period certain rebels emi-
grated from Prome and founded Pagan, which became the central point of a new
kingdom, and flourished from the seventh to the ninth centuries. About 1060 it
was sufficiently powerful to conquer, under the leadership of Anuruddha, or Anorat
Vi/.u, the Talaing kingdom of £adon, but was destroyed about 1300 by the dynasty
of Panja. The period during which Tagong (Taung-gu) was the capital of the old
Burmese kingdom coincides with the distribution of Indian civilization by the
Brahmans. According to Brahman legends, Tagong on the Irawaddi was founded
by King Abhiraja about five hundred years before our era. At any rate, the rulers
i'ngong were entirely subject to the influence of foreign civilization. Tradition
lias preserved long lists of names belonging to different dynasties, in which there
is an attempt to establish an original connection with the royal families of early
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 521
India. Individual members of these lists are still celebrated as mighty heroes in
Burmese popular songs.
The scanty substratum of historical truth that can first be derived from the native
legends displays the first thousand years of our era as an age of restless move-
ment, and of struggles fought out between the individual States, and also against
the Singhalese (p. 508), and in particular the Chinese, who attempted to reduce
Burmah to their supremacy when they were not themselves occupied by internal
disturbances. At a later period Chinese incursions were repeated, and as late as
1284 fierce battles against these powerful neighbours took place. It was not until
1305 that the Burmese ruler Minti succeeded in shaking off the supremacy of
China, until the time of Shan supremacy in that country. The darkness in which
the details of Burmese history are veiled begins to disperse in the second half of
the fourteenth century. However, the character of the development remains
unchanged: bloody wars between the two chief races, the Burmese and the
Mons, brave and cruel rulers alternating with weaklings, and a general state of
upheaval which affected the little States of the west, and even the kingdom of
Central Indo-China.
In the year 1364, King Satomenchin (Thadominbia), lord of the land of Sagoin
(Sagany) and Panja, founded the Burmese capital of Ava (the classical Ratnapura),
which for a long time was to be the central point of the history of the country.
His successor, Mengyitsauke (Min-saw-mun), increased his kingdom by the con-
quest of Prome. He and the following kings defeated both the Arakanese (1413
and later) and the Chinese in 1424, 1449, and 1477. The centre of power then
shifted from Ava to Pegu, the ruler of which, Mentara, after subduing Burmah
and Arakan (1540), then stormed Ayuthia, the capital of Siam, in spite of a most
vigorous defence, and thus became paramount over the great kingdom in Central
Indo-China (1544). The Siamese repeatedly revolted, although their efforts were
forcibly suppressed, and soon succeeded in freeing themselves from the supremacy
of the Pegu king, Burankri Naunchan (1551-1581, also Bayin Naung; in Portu-
guese, Branginogo). Burmah, however, remained dependent upon Pegu for a longer
period. Attempts to shake off the foreign yoke failed (1585) ; Ava became a
provincial town, and was reduced to ruin by neglect. At the outset of the seven-
teenth century the forces of Pegu were expelled by Nyaung Mendarah ; Ava was
restored as the capital of Burmah in 1601 ; while Pegu and the northern Shan
States in the neighbourhood were subjugated. However, in 1636 Pegu freed itself
from Ava, which its rulers then subdued, and Ava became the capital of the two
united States. The balance of fortune and power continued to oscillate between
these States. In the second half of the seventeenth century Pegu was predomi-
nant ; the turn of Burmah came at the outset of the eighteenth century. However,
between 1740 and 1752 Burmah suffered several severe defeats and again became
subject to Pegu. When Burmah finally threw off the yoke of Pegu in 1753, the
last section of her history as an independent State begins (until 1885).
Europeans had set foot upon the soil of Indo-China several centuries previously ;
Malacca had been conquered by Albuquerque in 1511, and had become a stronghold
of Portuguese influence in the Malay archipelago ; trading stations had also been
founded on the north and west coasts of Further India, but the development of
these was hindered by the continual struggles between Pegu and Burmah. Upon
occasion Portuguese knights and soldiers fought on one or the other side. Adven-
522 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
turers, both Portuguese (Fil de Brito y Nicote, 1600-1613) and Spanish (Sebaste
Gonzalez de Tibao, about 1650), gained a temporary reputation at the cost of a
miserable end. However, European relations with Further India went no further
than this. At a later period the English and the Dutch also founded settlements
on the Burmese coast, but were collectively expelled in consequence of their
tactless behaviour to the Burmese officials. It was not until the middle of the
eighteenth century that the English, in return for the help which they gave to
Alompra, the Burmese liberator, and also by their undignified subservience,
obtained permission to found a factory on the island of Negrais, at the mouth
of the Bassein River, which carried on a considerable trade for some time (until
October, 1759).
In 1740 Burmah was overrun by Beinga-Della of Pegu, and the royal family was
utterly exterminated. However, in 1753 Alompra collected a number of adherents
in the village of Mozzobo (Manchabu). This personage is also known as Alaungp
'ayfi, Alunk P'Hura, " the huntsman." In a parable apparently emanating from
Buddhaghosha we read the following contemptuous statement : " Of the twenty-one
castes nineteen can be released from their sins by good works ; but the huntsmen
and fishers, though they visit the pagoda, hear the law, and keep the five command-
ments until the end of their lives, can never be released from their skis." Alompra
drove out the governor of Pegu and the brother of its king, AporazS, who appeared
in 1754 before Ava with a fleet. In 1755 he advanced upon Pegu and gained
possession of the hostile capital in 1757. In memory of the victory of Synyangong
(April 21, 1755) Rangoon was founded, a town which rapidly rose to great com-
mercial importance by reason of its favourable situation.
Pegu, which had struggled for so many centuries with Burmah for predominance,
ceased to exist in 1757. From that date Burmah, which by the occupation of Mer-
gui and Tenasserim, even encroached upon Siam, was indisputably the first power
in the west of the peninsula of Further India. After the death of Alompra, May
15, 1760, his successor (Namdoji Prau or Phra, etc.) was confronted with the task
of quelling revolts, repelling the attacks of the Chinese who declined to tolerate
the growth of this new power on their southern frontier, and incorporating those
petty States of Western Indo-China which had retained their independence. Shem-
baun (S'inbyuyin, Shang-Phra-Shang ; 1763-1766), the second successor of Alom-
pra, successfully defended his empire against the Chinese, almost destroying their
army under General Chien lang before Ava; he temporarily (1771) conquered
Siam and subdued Assam (Asa"m), which had hitherto maintained its independence
both against India and Indo-China. Alompra's third son, the sixth king of the
dynasty of 1757, Bhodau Phra (Bodaw p'ayfi, that is, royal grandfather; more
properly Baden-thaken, also Mentaragyi or Menderaji Prau), a brave ruler, though
cruel and capricious, founded Amarapura (Urnmarapura) as a new capital in 1783,
and obliged all the inhabitants of Ava to emigrate thither. He suppressed revolts
in Pegu with bloodthirsty severity, most cruelly persecuted the Buddhist doctrine
of those priests, and in 1874 incorporated Arakan, which he had captured by
treachery, with his kingdom. Thus upon his death (1819), Burmah had reached
the zenith of its greatness and power.
Phagyi-dau (Ing-Sche-Men), the grandson and successor of Bhodau Phra, re-
turned to residence in the capital of Ava. He inherited the capricious and irre-
sponsible character of his father without any of his high talent. His exaggerated
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 523
estimate of his own powers led to the first war with England (1824-1826 ; cf.
p. 478). By the peace of Yandabo (February 24, 1826) Burmah was deprived of
most of its power, compelled to pay an indemnity of £1,000,000, to conclude a
commercial treaty, to receive a British resident, and was confined to the basin of
the Irawaddi; its possessions now hardly extend beyond the delta of that river
(including Eangoon). However, the rulers of the country had been taught nothing
by the severe punishment which they had received. In 1837 Phagyi-dau, having
become totally insane, was deposed and placed in confinement. His successor
Tharawadi, who was no less autocratic and short-sighted, declined to recognise the
convention of Yandabo. The English missionaries were so badly treated that they
were forced to evacuate the country, and the British resident was withdrawn in
1840 in consequence of the insolent treatment which he had experienced.
In 1845 Tharawadi also went mad, and was deposed by his son Pagan Meng;
hostilities, however, still continued. British captains were insulted and payment
was refused of the indemnities demanded. Burmah was voluntarily rushing into
a new war with England. In rapid succession, though at the price of considerable
loss, the British troops captured Martaban (Ramanya — April 5, 1852), Eangoon,
Bassein, Prome, and Pegu (21st November). On the 20th of December Lord Dal-
housie in person laid down the new frontier line, declaring Lower Burmah (Pegu)
British territory (p. 488). This was a fatal blow to Burmese independence, as the
country was cut off from the coast and from communications by sea, and deprived
of its most fruitful rice territory. This peace, so favourable to England, placed her
in complete possession of what had been the east coast of Burmah on the Sea of
Bengal. The rest of the native kingdom was placed in a position of entire depen-
dency upon British India, the maintenance of good relations with England being
thus indispensable. This, however, was a condition impossible of fulfilment by the
Burmese rulers.
Pagan Meng was deposed in 1853 and succeeded by Meng dan (dun) Meng
(Menlung Men, Mindon-min), a well-meaning ruler, benevolent to his subjects ; he
was, however, wholly unable to grasp the situation, as is obvious from the fact that
eighteen months after the incorporation of Pegu he sent an embassy to Calcutta
requesting the restoration of the territory taken from the kingdom. For a long
time he declined to sign the convention confirming the loss of Pegu. At the same
time under this king, who removed his capital from Amarapura to Mandalay in
1857, highly profitable relations were begun between Burmah and British India.
In 1862 Arakan, Martaban (Irawaddi), Pegu, and Tenasserim were united into
"British Burmah" (under Arthur Phayre as chief commissioner), and in 1874
Queda in Malacca was voluntarily ceded by its prince, and united to Tenasserim.
In 1871 Italy, and in 1873 France, concluded commercial treaties with Burmah,
which manifested its interest in a definite connection with Europe by the despatch
of ambassadors (1872, 1874, and 1877).
Meng dan Meng died on the 1st of October, 1878, and was succeeded by Thibau
(Theebaw), a king of the type of Phagyi dau and Tharawadi. He was a bitter
enemy to England, and drove out the resident from Burmah in September, 1879,
by continual persecution. He then entered into negotiations with France, which
had advanced the frontier of its colonies in Further India to the Burmese tributary
States of the Shan, with the object of entering into closer relations with that coun-
try. Proposals were made for the construction upon French ground of a railway
524 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \Chapteriv
to Mandalay, where a French bank was to be founded, etc. England thereupon
sent an ultimatum to Thibau on the 17th of October, 1885, demanding the recep-
tion of a British ambassador and the renunciation of all attempts at an independent
policy on the part of Burmah. The king was granted four days for consideration,
and rejected the ultimatum. The English, however, had availed themselves of this
short interval to concentrate eleven thousand troops on the Burmese frontier under
Colonel Harry North Dalrymple. Thibau, in surprise, requested an armistice for
negotiation. This was granted under the condition that the whole Burmese army
should be surrendered, together with Maudalay. These conditions were faithfully
observed and executed on the 28th of November, whereupon the defenceless king
was immediately carried off as a state-prisoner to Madras by way of Eangoon on
the 1st of December. The English name of these proceedings is " The Third Bur-
mese War." In reality the storming of Minhla on the 17th of October was the
only operation which cost any lives. By surprise they became masters of the west
of Burmah which had remained free and which officially ceased its independent
existence on the 31st of December, 1885. In April, 1886, an attempt was made
at revolt and suppressed in November by General Koberts (Vol. Ill, p. 515). After
the incorporation of the Shan States, which took place during the years 1887-1888
(cf. p. 529), the British became masters of the whole of Western Indo-China.
(b) Central Indo-China. — In Central Further India three kingdoms have
successively secured predominance : Champa, Cambodia, and Siam. Our knowledge,
however, of the early history of Central Indo-China is confined to the most general
outlines.
(a) Champa and Cambodia. — The previous statement is especially true of
Champa, the oldest of the three States above named; the earliest intelligible
accounts display the Cham as a powerful people. At the time of its greatest
prosperity, near the middle of the first century A. D., Champa was about the size
of the modern Cambodia, though at different periods it also extended over Cochin-
China, Annam, and even to Southern Tongking. At the time of Ptolemy the civil-
ization was Brahman, early Sanscrit inscriptions covering the period from the third
to the eleventh century A. D. ; from that date inscriptions are written in Champa,
a special dialect strongly influenced by Sanscrit elements. The religion of the
country was, as everywhere in Further India, chiefly £iva worship (Lingam) ;
scarce a trace of Buddhism is to be discovered during that period, and it was not
until the downfall of the Champa kingdom that Buddhism became more deeply
rooted in the district (cf. p. 519 above).
Wars with the Chinese, who were extending their supremacy over Tongking,
Annam, and Cochin-China, and drove out the Cham from those districts, occupy the
period from the fourth to the tenth centuries of our era. The Champa were also
forced to struggle with the Khmers, who had entered the country from the north
according to the early traditions of Cambodia, and were settled in the northeast
<>f the Champa kingdom in the days of Ptolemy. As early as the seventh century
they pushed then- way like a wedge between the Champa kingdom and the States
of Annam and Cochin-China, which were subject to China. We find them in full
possession of Brahman civilization; the earliest written records of the Khmer
State of Cambodia are in Sanscrit and belong to the third century ; in 626
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 525
(according to the Saka chronology 549) this inscription mentions a King
warrnan, whose three predecessors, Eudrawarman, Bhawawarman, and Mahendra-
warman can be inferred from the oldest Buddhist inscription but one of the year
667 (according to the Saka chronology 589) ; from the first of these kings the list
of rulers is continued with but scanty interruption until the year 1108. A reliable
eye-witness, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsaug (p. 409) visited the two States of
Cambodia and Champa in the years 631-633 and mentions their towns Dewara-
wati, Chamapura, and Champapura. At this period Cambodia was a State of equal
power to the earlier Champa kingdom. However, even then a dangerous move-
ment became perceptible upon the northern frontier. From the Chinese frontier
mountains tribes of the Thai advanced southward to the borders of Cambodia. A
branch of these immigrants, the Lao, settled upon the eighteenth degree of latitude
in 547 and founded a State with the capital of Labong ; at a later period other
smaller kingdoms of the Thai were formed. At the outset of the seventh century
the Lao (in Chinese annals Ai-Lao) made a vigorous advance upon Cambodia.
There, however, their power was broken. Legend conjoins the defeat of the Thai
with the name of the King Phra Euang ; the chronology dates from his govern-
ment, the first year of which, 638 A. D., still forms a chronological starting-point
throughout the whole of central Further India. The defeated enemy were absorbed
into the local civilization and adopted the writing and the laws of Cambodia.
However, their youthful strength could not thus be permanently constrained ; in
the year 959 A. D. the Thai freed themselves, as is unanimously related by the
early records of Cambodia and Siam. Driven on, perhaps, by the movement of
the Tatar Khitan, who had invaded China in 937 (p. 93) they pressed on under
their king, also known as Phra Euang, to the south and founded an independent
kingdom at the expense of the Khmer State ; this was the nucleus from which
was formed the principality of Xieng-Mai (p. 516) about 1250, and the more
modern Siam at a somewhat later date.
(/3) Siam. — Like a flash in the darkness of the night Kublai Khan (p. 177),
the Chinese governor of Mangu, burst upon the Thai in 1253-1254 ; the kingdom
of Namchao, founded by a Thai tribe, was shattered, and the Shan were driven to
their present habitations. The Thai kingdom of Sukhodaya on the Menam, which
extended from Ligor to Wingchau and to the great Lake of Cambodia under the
rule of Eama Khomheng suffered but little. The Thai of Siam continued their
advance, hemming in the Cham and pressing hard upon the Khmer ; at the end of
the thirteenth century they had already reached the mouth of the Menam. Siam
(Muong Thai, or " The land of the Thai ") had then practically attained its present
extension. The Champa kingdom had dwindled to a small district in the south,
and Cambodia had been driven southeastward.
(1) The First Period of Modern Siamese History (134^-1556). — The first period
of modern Siamese history begins with King Eamathibodi (Phra-Utong), who
ascended the throne iu 1344 and rapidly extended his kingdom by conquest over
a large part of Cambodia, and as far as the Malacca peninsula on the southwest.
As the centre of gravity in the kingdom had thus changed, the capital of Chaliang
was removed further south in 1350 to Ayuthia, which was erected upon the ruins
of the old Daona. Cambodia was again attacked and conquered in the years 1353
526 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter ir
and 1357 ; the new founded capital was peopled with the prisoners, and the
weakened neighbour kingdom was forced to cede the province of Chantabum to
Siam. The successors to the great Phra-Utong were busied with the task of
checking their northern neighbours (Lao 1382), of restraining the aggression of
Champa, which had sunk to the position of a piratical State, of bringing the
revolted Malacca under the supremacy of Siam, and punishing a revolt hi Cambo-
dia by the complete destruction of the capital town ; the Khmer were, consequently,
removed to the swampy lowlands on the coast.
A number of less important rulers then came to the throne, who had much diffi-
culty in maintaining the power of the empire. In their period occurred the first
occasion of that contact with the European world which has so deeply influenced
the modern history of Indo-China. In 1511, King Borommaraja, while reconquer-
ing the revolted province of Malacca, came in contact with the Portuguese, who
had occupied the town and fortress of Malacca in the same year ; relations profit-
able to both parties were begun between the powers, and a commercial treaty was
concluded. With this exception Siam remained for the moment untouched by
European influence. The domestic history of the country is characterised by dis-
turbances, quarrels for the succession, and the rule of favourites and women. So
long as peace continued abroad, the weakness of the kingdom passed unnoticed.
It collapsed, however, incontinently when the powerful Pegu turned against it after
securing the predominance in Burmah ; King Mentara invaded the country with a
large force, and the inhabitants of Cambodia seized the opportunity of joining in
the military operations. Notwithstanding a desperate resistance, the capital of
Ayuthia surrendered in 1544 and Siam became a tributary vassal State of Pegu.
Hardly had the country begun to recover from these disasters and to think of its
lost independence wheii a new invasion by Mentara in 1547 checked its aspira-
tions. The capital, defended by Portuguese knights, resisted all efforts at capture,
and Mentara returned home without accomplishing his purpose ; however, in 1556
Ayuthia was stormed by Chumigren, the successor of Mentara, and almost the
whole population was carried into captivity ; Siam then became a province of Pegu.
(2) The Second Period of Modern Siamese History (1556-17 67}. — Chumigren
was so short-sighted as to set up the brother-in-law of the last King of Siam as
governor of the country; he was a capable man, who transmitted his strong patri-
otism and love of independence to his highly gifted son, Phra Naret (Abhiraja
Pramerit; 1558-1593), who was born in 1542. With him begins the gradual rise
<>f the second great popular movement in modern Siamese history, and even at the
present day he is honoured as the great national hero of Siam. In 1564 he utterly
defeated the forces of Pegu and peopled the somewhat deserted capital with the
prisoners (1566). In the north he reduced the Lao under his power in the two
following years, and in the year 1569 he secured his recognition by China as the
legitimate Kin^ of Siam. The high ambitions of Phra Naret were directed to ex-
tending the Siamese power over the whole of Indo-China. His first task was to
shatter I'e^u. the previous oppressor of his fatherland. For this campaign the
King of Cambodia offered his help. However, when the Siamese troops had
•hed to Pegu, the ruler of Cambodia treacherously invaded the undefended land
• »f his ally. He was beaten back, but the war of Phra Naret with Pegu proved
long and arduous in consequence, and it was not until 1579 that the struggle ended
India
«•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 527
with the complete subjugation of Pegu to the power of Siam. Vengeance was now
taken upon the ruler of Cambodia for his treachery; in 1583 he was defeated and
captured, and his capital of Lawek was utterly destroyed. In 1587 the outbreak
of disturbances in Pegu and Cambodia necessitated the presence of Phra Naret ;
when, however, after punishing the instigators of the movement, he proposed in
1593 to conquer the kingdom of Ava (Burmah) his victorious career was suddenly
cut short by death.
The reign of this great king was followed by more than a century and a half
of weak rulers, grievous confusion, bloody conflicts about the succession (the exter-
mination in 1627 of the house of Phra Naret, where the minister, Kalahom,
founded a new dynasty under the title of Phra Chau Phra-satthong), revolts
among the people in the provinces (especially in 1615) and embarrassments
abroad. Only upon one occasion did it appear as if Siam had any chance of
advancing to higher prosperity. In the year 1656 a Venetian adventurer of
Kephallenia, by name Constantine Phaulkon (in Siamese, Phra Klang ; in French,
M. Constance), entered the country. By his cleverness and capacity he gained
the favour of the reigning king, Narai (Chau Noraga, or Naraya), who heaped
honours upon him and appointed him to responsible positions, ultimately giving
him almost unlimited power in every department of governmental business.
Permission was given to the Dutch, the English, the Portuguese, and the French
to found trading settlements. Communication was improved by the scientific
construction of roads and canals, etc., and the prosperity of the country rapidly
increased. The French received special favour from Phaulkon ; in 1663 they
were allowed to build a Catholic church in Ayuthia and to erect a mission under
Lamotte Lambert. King Louis XIV and Pope Clement X sent an embassy to
Siam in 1673 to further the prosperity of Christianity, a friendly movement
answered in like manner by Phaulkon in 1684, which was received in the Roman
Catholic Church by Ant. Thomas, S. J., in 1682, May 2. In 1685, Chevalier de
Chaumont as ambassador, a fleet left France, to which Bangkok and Mergui were
handed over under a convention in 1687 ; these places the French fortified, but
the encroachments of the garrison under the comandment of Volantz du Bruant
and des Farges soon aroused popular animosity. So far-reaching an organisation
had been too rapidly initiated ; Phaulkon fell a victim to a popular revolt, formed
by the mandarins Phra Phet Eatscha (Pitsacha), Wisuta Songtong, and others, and
finished May 18 (capital punishment, June 5), in 1689 ; the reforms he had intro-
duced were, as far as possible, abolished, the French were expelled in 1690, and
the missions and native Christians subjected to severe oppression.
Under the weak rulers who succeeded (Phra Phet Eacha, 1689-1700, suc-
ceeded by his sons and grandsons), the power of Siam rapidly decayed. Once
again the deepest humiliation was to come from the west. In the neighbouring
kingdom of Burmah, Alompra (p. 522) had led his people from victory to vic-
tory, and had overthrown his hereditary enemy of Pegu. He now proposed to
conquer Siam, but after advancing almost to Ayuthia without meeting resistance,
he suddenly died in 1760. However, his successor, Shembuan, again invaded the
country in 1766 ; in 1767 the capital of Siam was captured and burnt, and the1
king, who was wounded, perished in the flames.
528 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter iv
(3) The Tliird Period of Modern Siamese History (since 1767). — The fall
of the capital and the death of the king left the country at the mercy of the con-
queror. He, however, placed but a scanty garrison in occupation. Upon the
north, where the strength of the Thai was, as ever, chiefly concentrated in its
native soil, a Siamese governor was appointed, by name Phaya Tak (Phiatak, Pia-
tak), a Chinese by birth. He gathered as many men capable of bearing arms as
he could, drove back the Burmese, and secured the recognition of China after the
extinction of the dynasty of 1627. As Ayuthia had been utterly destroyed, the
capital was transferred to Bangkok (Bancasey), at the mouth of the Menam, in
1678, which rapidly rose to a great commercial town. This success brought
power ; in the same year Phaya Tak subdued both Cambodia and the smaller
southern States and the Laos in the North (1777) ; he defeated the Burmese, who
could not forget or forgive the loss of Siam. Eventually he became insane, and
took sanctuary from a popular revolt in a monastery, where he was killed.
The position of Phaya Tak was taken in 1782 by his prime minister, Chakri,
the ancestor of the present dynasty. At that period a French bishop, Be"haine
(p. 531), had gained complete influence over the successor to the throne of the
neighbouring kingdom of Annain, and France began to interfere more decisively in
the domestic affairs of Eastern Indo-China. The growth of European influence and
the action of ecclesiastical ambassadors excited the apprehension of the natives ;
in Siarn the new king and his successors (Pierusing until 1809 ; Phendingkang,
1809-1824; Crom Chiat, or Kroma Mom Chit, 1824-April, 1851) manifested their
ill-feeling to the foreiguers. Embarrassments were constantly placed in the way
of the missions and decrees hostile to the Christian religion were repeatedly pro-
mulgated. It was not until the years 1840-1850 that the French bishop, D. J. B.
Pallegoix, to whom the education of the crown prince of Siam had been entrusted,
succeeded in securing full religious toleration from the prince upon his accession
in April, 1851. Ever since the brilliant career of Phaulkon a certain alarmed
astonishment had been the prevailing spirit with which Siam regarded France.
The young ruler, Chou Fa-Mongkut (a member of that branch of the ruling house
which had been expelled in 1824), attempted in 1851 to enter into closer relations
with the Emperor Napoleon through his ambassadors and under his brother and
successor, Somdet Phra Paramindr Maha Mongkut (1852-September 30, 1868), and
a commercial treaty was concluded with France in 1856 (with England in 1855 ;
with Germany on the 7th of February, 1862; with Austria in 1858). Peace-
ful relations with France continued during the reign of King Paramindr Maha
Chulalongkorn(-lankara), who ascended the throne of Siam at the age of fifteen,
on the 1st of October, 1868, and took the power from the hands of his trusted min-
ister, Chau Phraya 6ri Suriyawongse, on the 16th of November, 1873. In 1884
I-' ranee obtained a protectorate over A imam, and England secured the possession of
the whole of Burmah in 1886, Siam being the only important State of Further
India, which retained its independence. On the 8th of May, 1874, the constitu-
tion was reorganised, the legislative power being exercised by the king in concert
with the great. Suite council and the cabinet of ministers.
The small Sliau States in the north became, however, a source of mischief to
the two western powers struggling for predominance in Siam. The Shan States
on the eastern bank of the Mekong, in particular Kianghung, had been at different
periods in the possession, or under the supremacy, of their more powerful neighbours.
India
*.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 529
Annam, like Siam and Burmah, had claimed these States in her prosperous period,
and had never surrendered her putative rights. The confusion was completed by
China, which from an early age had claimed predominance over these States, as
over the whole of Further India. When England captured Burmah in 1886, and
the Shan States in 1887 and 1888 (508), and was thereby able to lay claim to
Kiaiighuiig on the left bank of the Mekong, France proceeded to interfere ; the
movements of the English had cut off her access to Yunnan by the Mekong, and
she now claimed, as the protectorate power of Annam, the middle course of the
Mekong as the old western frontier of Annam. England now forced Siam to be-
come her advocate and concluded a convention in 1892, which assigned to Siam,
as former mistress of those States, the town of Kianghung, which lay upon either
bank of the Mekong. As England had expected, the tension between Siam and
France broke into open war in 1893 ; however, this struggle ended on October 2d>
when Siam surrendered to France all her claims to the territory east of the Mekong
England again declined openly to confront her powerful rival ; she sheltered her-
self behind China, and agreed upon a frontier delimitation with that country by
which China obtained the States of Mongleng (Muang lem) and Kianghung in
return for an undertaking not to cede those provinces to any other power (France),,
either entirely or in part, without the assent of England. France was thereupon
forced to conclude a frontier delimitation of her own with China ; on July 20th,.
1895, she granted China a considerable southward extension of her territory on
the Mekong, in return for which important preferential advantages were secured
for her commerce with Southern China. ^>
It was not until the convention of January 15, 1896, that the war of intrigue
between England and France was, temporarily at least, concluded. By this con-
vention it was arranged that the central portion of Siam,1 about two-thirds of the
previous area of the State, should be secured by a joint protectorate of the two
powers. By this guarantee, on the other hand, two sections of the country, the
east, bordering upon French Annam, and to the west, near British Burmah, forming
the remaining third of the Siamese territory, was left untouched. The contracting
powers came to a tacit understanding not to stand in one another's way in view of
later undertakings against unprotected districts. At the moment Siam still rules
over her previous possessions.
(c) Eastern Further India (Tongking, Annam, and Cochin-China'). — (a) The Chi-
nese Period. — From an early period the history of eastern Further India, which is
naturally conjoined to China by the configuration of the continent, has been
inseparably bound up with that powerful kingdom, which developed a civilization
at an unusually early period. Early reports speak of an embassy from Tongking
to the imperial court in the second millennium before our era, and of the founda-
tion of Chinese dynasties in that district in 214 B. c. and 109 A. D., etc. Chinese
civilization, however, which was bound to expand, did not stop at Tongking. She
had already established herself in Annam and Cochin-China, and had made con-
1 The Siamese territory under the "protectorate" includes the river districts of the Pechaburi,
Mekong* Menam, and Bang Pakarn, with their tributaries ; the coast line from Muang Bang Tapan to
Muang Pase and the river valleys on which these towns are situated ; and, finally, the district north of
the valley of the Menam, between the Anglo-Siamese frontier, the Mekong, and the eastern frontier of
the Me-ing valley.
VOL. II— 34
530 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
siderable progress when the Brahman movement began to advance northward
from Cambodia (p. 519). There the earlier civilization was predominant, and in a
large degree determined the nature of the development of Annam. The forerunners
of Brahmanism made no great progress, except in Cochin-China, and left but feu-
traces in Annam, and practically none in Tongkiug.
Kr.'iu that remote epoch when the first dynasties were founded in Tongking,
China for more than a thousand years (until 968) firmly established herself in
eastern Indo-China, though her influence varied with the fortunes of Chinese his-
at large (p. 73 seq.). When China proper was in difficulties from internal dis-
turbances, changes of dynasties, or the attack of powerful foes, she exercised little
more than a shadowy predominance. Thus during the years 222-618 A. D. her
powers in Anuam were greatly limited, and the local governors availed themselves
of the embarrassments of the empire to make themselves almost independent. At
other periods China governed Eastern Further India with a firmer hand ; thus in
the fir-st half-century A. D. revolts were suppressed in Cochin-China (which also
made itself independent for a short period in 263), and after the powerful Tang
dynasty had gained the Chinese throne (p. 90) China once again brought the larger
part of Annam and Cochiu-China into close dependence upon herself.
({3} The Rise of National Feeling for Independence. — In the tenth century,
when China was again shattered by internal convulsions (p. 92 above), the movements
for independence in Annam were again victorious, and their success was permanent
from the year 968 to 981. During that period one of the Chinese governors, by
name Li, founded in Aunain the dynasty known by his name (1010-1225) ; Tong-
king threw off the Chinese yoke in 1164, as did Cochin-Chiua in 1166. China
again reduced the rebellious provinces, but only for a time ; the emperor, Kr.blai
Khan (pp. 96, 177, and 525) subdued Tongking and also Annam and Cambodia.
However, the two last-named States speedily recovered their independence, and
Tongkiug drove the Chinese out of the country in 1288. In the fourteenth, and
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, China again secured a footing in east-
ern Further India ; under the Ming dynasty Annam became tributary to China in
1368 (p. 101) and Tongking with Cochin-China became a Chinese province; then
during the years 1418-1427 the nationalist movement in these States became sc
strong that the Chinese lost all semblance of power. The leader of this move-
ment, Le Lo, was the founder of the Le dynasty which ruled for a long period
in Annam and Tongking (capital town Hanoi, founded in 1427); by embassies
and presents of homage, he made a formal recognition of Chinese supremacy, but
henceforward China could no longer interfere in the domestic affairs of Anuam.
The European advance to the east of Further India produced for the moment
more important consequences in this district than in the south and west of Indo-
China. Since 1511 Portuguese, and afterwards Dutch, factories had been founded,
ami from 1610 missions and small native Christian congregations existed (1610 in
Cambodia, 1615 in Champa and Tongking, 1631 in Hainan, 1632 in Laos) ; the
ofcry and its rulers were at first indifferent, and afterwards generally hostile to
all foreigners ; trade came almost to an entire cessation in the eighteenth century,
while the missions and Christian congregations were regarded with suspicion, often
bitterly persecuted, and ultimately forced to continue a doubtful existence in
sec ;
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 531
The powerful rulers of the house of Le were succeeded by a succession of
weaker princes in the sixteenth century. Under them some parts of Annara be-
came independent (1558) and the Le dynasty would have collapsed entirely with-
out the assistance of skilled officials, who became so important that they secured in
1545 the hereditary position of major domo (the dynasty of Trigne or Tringh ; cf.
thePeshwas in the Mahratta States; p. 446). Nguyen Hoang (Tien Wuong; until
1614) in Cochin-China broke away from these officials, and from the nominal ruler
in 1570, and became the ancestor of the present ruler of Annam. His successors
increased their kingdom by incorporating the remnants of Champa and of Southern
Cambodia (the six provinces of the modern lower Cochin-China), and were resident
in Hue. These changes caused a considerable degree of complication in the political
affairs of Eastern Indo-China during the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth
century. China claimed a formal supremacy, though she exercised no actual interfer-
ence. The Le dynasty continued to be the nominal rulers of Annam ; in reality, how-
ever, Annam with Cochin-China and Tongking had become two separate States
which were often involved in furious struggles with one another. The actual
rulers of Annam were the descendants of Nguyen Hoang, and in Tongking the
major domos of the house of Trigne.
(7) The Age of French Influence in Eastern Further India. — European rela-
tions with the country had entirely ceased in the eighteenth century ; an English
attempt under Catchpoole, in 1702 to settle in the island of Pulo Condore, came to
an end in 1704 with the murder of the settlers by the natives, and the destruc-
tion of the factory. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that Annam
came closely into connection with France.
A general rising, incited by three brothers of low birth, the Tay Son, en-
tirely transformed the political situation of Annam in 1755 ; the old dynasties
of the Le, and the major domo princes of the Trigne entirely disappeared, while
the Nguyen family became almost extinct. Only the grandson of the last king of
this family, by name Nguyen Angne, escaped to Siam, where he was educated by
the French bishop, Pigneux de Beliaine ; he then recovered the most southern por-
tion of the kingdom of his ancestors (Phucuog). He sent his son to France with
the bishop in 1787, and on November 18 secured the conclusion of an offensive
and defensive alliance from Louis XVI ; by this arrangement France was to receive
the Gulf and the Peninsula of Turon, while Nguyen Angne was to be helped by
France to conquer the rest of Annam. The execution of this compact on the part
of France was largely hindered by the French Revolution ; however, Nguyen
Augne, who was supported by the Bishop Adrian, secured the assistance of many
French officers, who drilled his troops in European fashion, and conducted the mili-
tary operations. He was then able between the years 1792 and 1799 to subdue,
not only Annam and the Tay Son, but also Tongking in 1802, which had meanwhile
thrown off the rule of the Tay Son and secured the predominance in Cambodia.
The kingdom had long become a mere shadow of that larger empire which had
existed at the time of the emigration of the Siam Thais. Since 1583, when Phra
Naret had dipped his feet in the blood of its king who was beheaded before him
(p. 526), the kingdom had been forced to submit to Siam. The misery of the
country was increased by continuous disturbances at home and entanglements
abroad with Siam, the Laos, and Annam ; the kings continually retreated before
532 HISTORY OF THE WORLD \_Chapter iv
their powerful neighbour, and finally transferred their capital to Saigon on the
coast, which occupied the site of the town known to Arrian as Thinai. An at-
tempt on the part of Cambodia to avail itself of the Siamese disasters in the war
with the Burmese, Alompra, came to nothing ; in 1794 the vassal ruler, Somrath
Phra Marai, who was set up by Siam, ceded Battambong and Siemrat to his patron
in return. From 1806 onwards the impoverished country paid tribute both to Siam
and Annam ; it held two seals, one from each of the two neighbouring States, and
the kings of Cambodia did homage to each of these powers.
Thanks to his French auxiliaries, Nguyen Augne proved brilliantly successful,
and henceforward to his title of " Emperor (or King) of Annam " he added the royal
title of " Gia long " (that is, the man favoured by fortune). Once in power, he be-
came suspicious of the foreigners, whose importance he understood better than any
other ruler in Further India. While removing his favour, he made no exhibition
of open hostility. His minister of ecclesiastical affairs, Nguyen Du Hun tarn tri
is said to have had translated into Annamese for the king's benefit about 1788 a
somewhat immoral novel, which is of interest for the history of civilization, the
" Kim Wan Kieu Tan Truyen," a fact which throws much light upon the morality
and the education prevalent in the court of Annam at that period.
His successor, Migne megne (Minhmang, 1720-1841), was at first tolerant
toward foreigners. However the political intrigues of the French and Spanish
missionaries roused him to animosity against the Europeans ; in 1833 the mis-
sionaries were cruelly persecuted ; in 1838 he forbade Europeans to enter his
country, and the profession of Christianity was publicly declared a crime as
heinous as high treason. In the same year thirty-three French priests fell vic-
tims to this decree. Thie utri (1841-1847), the son and successor of Migne megne,
relaxed the persecution by merely imprisoning the missionaries, four of whom
were liberated in 1843 upon the threats of the French. Generally speaking, how-
ever, the oppression continued, and in 1847 France demanded full religious tolera-
tion through Commodore Lapierre, which was granted after the fleet of Annam had
been destroyed. In the same year the emperor died. He was succeeded by his
son, Tuduk (Tuduc or Dukduk, originally Hoong Nham), who was at first well
disposed toward the Christians, and reigned until July 17, 1883. Once again the
missionaries interfered in a question as to the succession to the throne, and made
the young emperor the furious enemy of foreigners and Christians alike. Severe
persecutions broke out in 1848 and 1851. France, who considered herself the power
responsible for the Christians in Asia, ultimately sent out ships and troops under
Captain Lelieur de Ville-sur-arc in September, 1856. Turon was stormed in 1856,
but the morning the ships had sailed away Annam replied with a fresh persecution
of the Christians and the murder of the Spanish bishop, Diaz (1857).
Fnmce now made a vigorous effort in co-operation with Spain. On September
1, 1858, Commodore Charles Rigault de Genouilly again captured Turon and took
the town of Saigon in February, 1859. The plan of campaign was then changed ;
in 1860 Napoleon III issued orders to evacuate Annam and to occupy only Cochin-
china, the vassal State of Annam. Meanwhile war had broken out with China,
iinil operations were thereby hindered, and were not resumed until after the peace
killer (p. 109). In the beginning of 1861 the vice-admiral, Th^ogene Francois
Page, destroyed the fortifications on the banks of the Mekong. Admiral Louis
Adolphe Bonard, who had taken over the command in December, 1861, won a vie-
Indi
*•] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 533
tory on January 19, 1862, at Monglap, conquered the whole province of Saigon,
and captured several important towns in Cambodia. Tuduk was forced to conclude
peace on June 15 at the price of the cession of the three provinces of Saigon,
Bienhoa, and Mytho. Disturbances broke out in December, leading to fresh nego-
tiations, and a definite peace was not concluded until July 15, 1864. France then
returned the above-named provinces, retaining Saigon, and undertook a protectorate
over Cambodia, in spite of the protestations of Siam, a tie which was drawn closer
by the convention of June 17, 1884. The actual ruler is not King Norodom I
(since 1860), but the French resident in Pnom Penh. Fresh outbreaks in Annam
necessitated further military operations on the part of France in 1867. The result
was the definite loss of those three provinces which now form French Cochin-China.
Meanwhile, a descendant of the Le dynasty, Le Phung, had made himself mas-
ter of Eastern Tongking, and of the province of Vac Nigne (Bacninh). However,
when Tuduk found himself free to act in 1864, he was cruelly put to death. Even
then Tongking was not pacified. From 1850 the great neighbouring empire in the
north had been shattered by the Taipings, and it was not until 1865 that the rebels
in the southern provinces of Kwangsi and Kwangtung were overpowered (p. 110).
Many of the rebels fled into the province of Annam under Ua Tsong, where under
the " black flag " they disturbed the peace of this much tried country as banditti
and river pirates.
When France established herself in Annam she had other views than the mere
extension of her empire. Reports had long previously been in circulation concern-
ing the fabulous natural wealth of the southern provinces of China and of Yunnan
in particular. The English and the French were striving to intercept one another
in the race for these treasures. Upon the incorporation of Burmah (p.523), England
gained a water-way, enabling her to advance into the immediate neighbourhood of
Yunnan, The French were now in possession of the mouth of a great river coming
from the north to the Mekong, and proceeded to investigate the possibility of its
navigation. For this purpose it proved impracticable. Captain Dontard de Lagre"e
(1866-1868) established the fact that the rapids in the immediate neighbourhood
of the river mouth formed an impassable obstacle. The Songka (red river) in
Tongking offered better prospects. Dupuis, an enterprising Frenchman, fitted out
an expedition to this stream at his own expense. In 1870 he advanced up the
river in ships as far as Yunnan, and entered into relations with the Chinese man-
darins. Hostilities on the part of the Annamites made it necessary to despatch
the naval lieutenant, Marie Jos. Francois (Francis) Gamier, in 1873, who with less
than two hundred French troops subdued in a few months in Tongking a country
populated by a million of inhabitants and twice the size of Belgium.
The French parliament declined, however, to sanction the results of those
successes in Tongking. The troops were withdrawn (Gamier had been killed on
December 31, 1873, by a treacherous attack of the pirates), and France contented
herself with the conclusion of a treaty on March 15, 1874, obliging Annam to
throw open to European trade three additional harbours (Xinh hai at Hai phong,
Hanoi, and Thinai or Qui nhon), to grant full religious tolerance, and to apply to
France alone for help in suppressing revolts. A commercial treaty was also con-
cluded on August 31, which, however, was not kept by Annam in spite of its
confirmation by that country (August 26, 1875). Annam displayed an unvarying
spirit of hostility to France, until that power lost patience. Hanoi was bombarded
534 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {Chapter iv
in 1882, and the French again advanced into Tongking, where the pirates caused a
great deal of trouble (Major Henri Laurent Kiviere being killed by an ambuscade
..:i May 19, 1883). By degrees one fortress after another was captured by Kear-
Atlnu'ral A. A. P. Courbet, including Sontay, which had been occupied by the Chinese
-•rnber 16 and 17, 1883). Vao Nigne was also taken by General Charles Theo-
dore Millot (March 10-12, 1884). Tuduk, the ruler of Anuam, had died in July,
1883, and had been succeeded by his brother, Hiephoa.1 On August 21, 1883, by a
treaty which was ratified and extended on June 6, 1884, he was forced to cede further
provinces, to recognise the protectorate of France, and to renounce all political con-
nection with other powers, China included, which had declared in Paris, through
the Marquis Tseng, in 1882, its refusal to acknowledge the convention of 1874.
However, in the convention of Tientsin, dated May, 1884, China, which had
seriously entertained the project of armed interference in Tongking, fully recognised
the French demands, including the protectorate of Annam and Tongking. China,
however, did not withdraw its troops from Langson in Tongking, and the struggle
continued with varying success for some time, the French suffering considerable
losses at the hands of the pirates (General Francois Oscar de Ndgrier wounded at
That-ke on March 24, 1885). Ultimately, British mediation brought about the
Peace of London on April 4, 1885 (confirmed at Tientsin on June 9), whereby
China withdrew all her troops from Tongking and recognised the French Protec-
torate over these States, which she had ruled or at any rate claimed for thousands
of years. In May, 1886, the power of the pirates, who were no longer supported by
China, was finally shattered. Thus the French were left in undisputed possession
of the water-way leading to Yunnan. Since April 12, 1888, Cochin-China, Cam-
bodia, Annam, and Tongking, to which Laos was added in 1893, have been under one
uniform administration as "French Indo-China."
1 The "emperor," Hiephoa, who was friendly to the French, poisoned himself on November 28, 1883.
Hf was succeeded by three brothers, nephews of Tuduk : Kienphuk, to August, 1884, Ham Nghi, who
fled in July, 1885, and was transported as a prisoner to Algiers in 1887, and Done Kanh (Dongkhanh ;
originally T.shanh mong) September 19, 1885-January 31, 1889. The final ruler was Thanh Thai (origi-
nally Bun Lan), February 1, 1889, to September 27, 1897, under tutelage ; since then self-dependent.
Indonesia-} HISTORY OF THE WORLD 535
V
INDONESIA
BY LATE DR. HEINRICII SCHURTZ
1. ETHNOGRAPHICAL SURVEY
INDONESIA is the name by which we designate the largest group of islands
in the world, which stretches out in front of Asia to the southeast, and
forms the stepping-stone to the mainland of Australia on the one side, and
to the Melanesian archipelagoes and the island-realm of Oceania on the
other. The innumerable members of the group include the most gigantic islands
of the globe, with mountain ranges and navigable rivers as well as diminutive
islets, which hardly supply the sparsest population with the necessaries of life ;
we find, as we go toward the east, the first traces of Australian dryness and desola-
tion as well as regions of tropical luxuriance and splendid fertility. For a long
period there was no idea of any general name for all these islands and island
groups, least of all among the natives themselves, who often have hardly recog-
nised the larger islands to be connected territories or called them such. Their
narrow horizon, on the other hand, has completely prevented them from realising
the sharp contrast which exists between their own island homes, with extensive
and deeply indented coast lines, and the neighbouring continents, of which only a
small part is in contact with the sea. At least they have never thought of empha-
sising such a distinction by collective names. The geographers of Europe, having
the whole picture of the world before their eyes, were the first to mark out the
two large groups of the Sunda Islands and the Philippines ; and lastly, though
only in quite modern times, and not without opposition, they named these two
" Indonesia," 1 in contrast to the Japanese and Melanesian archipelagoes. It must
be noticed that this division has given prominence to the ethnological point of view.
Indonesia is the region inhabited by that peculiar brown, straight-haired race, to
which we give the name Malayan, and which has been recognised from very early
times as a distinct type of mankind.
As we are now concerned with the history of mankind, we may lay still greater
stress on the ethnographical standpoint, and from this aspect attach to Indonesia
a country which geographically considered belongs to a totally distinct quarter of
the globe, namely, Madagascar. This large island seems to lie by chance to the
east of the massive and limbless trunk of Africa, and in its peculiarities shows
little affinity to the physical characteristics of the African continent. The contrast
is not merely one of geological conditions or of fauna and flora. In respect of its
population also Madagascar is an appanage of Indonesia rather than of Africa.
The Indian island world belongs as a whole to the tropics, and in its chief
1 More rarely "Insulinde," particularly since the publication of Ed. Douwes Dekker's "Max
Havelaar," in 1860.
536 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
parts to the moist and warm tropical plains. Highlands, which are of incalculable
importance for the culture of tropical countries, as the ancient history of America
in particular shows, are only found to any appreciable extent in Sumatra, although
there is no lack of mountain ranges and lofty volcanic cones on the other islands.
If we recall the doctrine of Oskar Peschel that the oldest civilized countries lay
nearer the tropics than those of modern times, and that therefore the chief zones
of civili/ation have withdrawn toward the poles, it can at least be conjectured that
a region, so favourably situated as Indonesia, was not always of such trifling im-
portance for the history of mankind as it is at present. We need not picture to
ourselves a primitive highly developed culture, but one which, after reaching a cer-
tain level at an early period, remained stationary and was outstripped by the civili-
zation of other regions. The Dyak in Central Borneo has reached, it is certain, no
high grade of civilization, but a comparison with the reindeer-hunters of the Euro-
pean Ice-Age would certainly be to his advantage. The entire ethnical develop-
ment of the country and the influence which it once asserted over wide regions of
the world prove that at a remote period a comparatively noteworthy civilization
was actually attained in the Malay Archipelago.
Indonesia, notwithstanding its place as a connecting link between Asia and
Australia, occupies from the view of ethnology an outlying position. It is true
that culture could radiate outwards from Indonesia in almost every direction ;
on the other hand, this region has almost exclusively been affected by movements
from the north and west, from Asia, that is, and later from Europe, but hardly at
all from Australia and Polynesia. These conditions find their true expression in
the old racial displacements of the Malay Archipelago. The drawbacks of this
geographical situation are almost balanced by the extraordinarily favourable posi-
tion for purposes of intercourse which the Malay islands enjoy, — a position in its
kind unrivalled throughout the world. The two greatest civilized regions of the
world — the Indo-European on the one side, the East- Asiatic on the other — could
only come into close communication by the route round the southeast extremity
of Asia, since the Mongolian deserts constituted an almost insuperable barrier ;
but there in the southeast the island world of Indonesia offered its harbours and
the riches of its soil to the seafarers wearied by the long voyage, and invited
them to exchange wares and lay the foundation for prosperous trading-towns.
This commercial intercourse has never died away since the time when it was first
started ; the nations alone who maintained it have changed. The present culture
of the Archipelago has grown up under the influence of this constant intercourse ;
but the oldest conditions, which are so important for the history of mankind, have
nowhere been left unimpaired. We need not commit the blunder of taking the
rude forest tribes of Borneo or Mindanao for surviving types of the ancient civili-
zation of Indonesia. The bold seamen, who steered their vessels to Easter Island
and Madagascar, were assuredly of another stock than these degenerate denizens
of the steamy primeval forests.
2. INDONESIAN HISTORY
IT is difficult to give a short sketch of Indonesian history, because justifiable
doubt- may ari.xe as to the correct method of statement. First, we have to deal
with an insular and much divided region ; and, secondly, a large, indeed the greater,
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 537
part of the historical events were produced and defined by external influences.
The history of Indonesia is what we might expect from the insular nature of the
region ; it splits up into a narrative of numerous local developments, of which the
most important at all events require to be treated and estimated separately. But,
on the other hand, waves of migration and civilizing influences once more flood all
the island- world and bring unity into the whole region by ending the natural
isolation of the groups. And yet this unity is only apparent ; for even if new
immigrants gain a footing on the coasts of the larger islands and foreign civiliza-
tions strike root in the maritime towns, the tribes in the interior resist the swell-
ing tide and preserve in hostile defiance their individuality, protected now by the
mountainous nature of their homes, now by the fever-haunted forests of the valleys
in which they seek an asylum.
A. THE PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL CONDITIONS
SINCE there no longer exists any doubt that man inhabited the earth even at
the beginning of the Drift epoch, and since the opinion might be ventured that
his first appearance falls into the Tertiary age it is no longer possible to deduce
in a childlike fashion the primitive conditions of mankind from the present state
of the world, and to look for its oldest home in one of the countries still exist-
ing. Least of all must we hazard hasty conclusions when we are dealing with
a part of the earth so manifestly the scene of the most tremendous shocks and
transformations, and so rent and shattered by volcanic agencies as Indonesia.
In quite recent times, also, the discovery of some bones at Trinil in Java by
E. Dubois (1891-92), which Othniel Charles Marsh ascribes to a link between
man and the anthropoid apes, has caused a profound sensation in the scientific
world and stimulated the search, in Indonesia itself, for the region where man
first raised himself to his present position from a lower stage of existence. How-
ever this question may be answered, it is meanwhile calculated to discourage
any discussion of origins ; it especially helps us to reject those views which un-
hesitatingly look for the home of all Indonesian nationalities on the continent
of Asia, and from this standpoint build up a fanciful foundation for Indonesian
history. The linguistic conditions warn us against this misconception ; on the
mainland of southern Asia we find monosyllabic languages ; but in the island
region they are polysyllabic. There is thus a fundamental distinction between
the two groups.
B. THE PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIONS OF INDONESIA
Two main races are represented in the Malay Archipelago, which in the num-
ber of their branches and in their distribution are extraordinarily divergent.
They show in their reciprocal relations the unmistakable result of ancient his-
torical occurrences. These are the brown, straight-haired Malays (in the wider
sense) and the dark-skinned Negritos, who owe their name to their resemblance to
the Negro. Since the whole manner in which the Negritos are at present scat-
tered over the islands points to a retrogression, there will always be an inclination
to regard them, when compared with the Malays, as the more ancient inhabitants
of at least certain parts of the Archipelago.
538 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
The Negritos of Indonesia form a link in the chain of those equatorial dark-
skinned peoples who occupy most part of Africa, Southern India, Melanesia,
and Australia, and almost everywhere, as compared with lighter-skinned races,
exhibit a retrogression which certainly did not begin in modern times, and sug-
<rests the conclusion that the homes of these dark racial elements were once more
extensive than they are to-day. It is doubtful, indeed, whether we are justified in
assuming these negroid races to be closely connected, or whether on the contrary
several really independent branches of the dark-skinned type of mankind are
represented among them. One point is, however, established ; the Negritos of the
Malay archipelago, by their geographical distribution, and still more by their
physical characteristics, are most closely allied to the Papuans who inhabit New
Guinea and the Melanesian groups of islands. It follows that the Papuan race
once extended further to the west, and was worsted in the struggle with the
Malay element. According to Alfred Grandidier's view, even the dark-skinned
inhabitants of Madagascar would be closely akin to the Melanesians. The
Negritos are in no respect pure Papuans ; not only are they often so mixed
with Malay tribes that their individuality has disappeared except for a few rem-
nants, but many indications point to the fact that there have been frequent cross-
ings with tribes of short stature, whose relation to the Papuans may perhaps be
compared with that of the African pigmies to the genuine Negroes. These dwarf
races cannot in any way be brought into line with the other dark peoples. Kins-
folk of the low-statured race, which has mixed with the Negritos, or perhaps formed
their foundation, exist on the peninsula of Malacca, especially in its northern part,
on the Andamans, and in Ceylon ; there were also, in all probability, representa-
tives of this dwarf race to be found on the larger Sunda Islands, and in East Asia
(cf. p. 130).
At any rate it is a fact that some of the eastern islands of the Malay archi-
pelago, particularly the Philippines, still contain dark tribes, although in conse-
quence of numerous admixtures and the small numbers of these petty nations
their existence has often been doubted. Karl Semper describes the Negritos or
Antes of the Philippines as low-statured men, of a dark, copper-brown complexion,
with flat noses and woolly black -brown hair. Where they have preserved to some
degree their purity of race they are a characteristic type, easily distinguishable
from the members of the Malay race. There appear to be hardly any Negritos
on the Sunda Islands proper. But in the South, on Timor, Floris, the Moluccas
and Celebes, more or less distinct traces point to an admixture of a dark-skinned
race with the Malay population. The same fact seems to be shown on Java.
Where the Negritos are more differentiated from the others, on the Philippines
especially, they usually live in the inaccessible interior of the islands, far from the
more densely peopled coasts, and avoid the civilization that prevails there. It is
sufficiently clear that these conditions point to a retrogression and displacement of
the Negritos ; but it is difficult to arrive at any certainty on these points.
The Papuan strain, which is so often to be found in the vicinity of the dwarf
race, may be traced to an immigration from Melanesia, which has had its parallels
even in quite modern times. The Papuans of Western New Guinea, who were
bold navigators and robbers, penetrated to the coasts of the eastern Sunda
Islands, and planted settlements there, or possibly they immigrated to those parts
as involuntary colonists, having been defeated and carried away by the Malays
FURTHER INDIA
AND
.MALAY ARCHIPELAGO
" ••--•
Printed bv the Biblic
European I'ossrssions:
I I Sntisti | I -Dutch.
\ \Frmrfi, 1 Portuguese
Subtnann* Cables
Steamboat routes ( BtfJrf'ft's/i
IF.U'r-eruJi (G.j ffernum {Di2>uf/fi, ( S.) Spanish
(\\ltutitai Tltf. figures an the
Steamboat routes derurtx (he distances i/L oars.
ches InBtJtut Leipzig
PtDarwm
Indonesia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 539
in their punitive expeditions. On the whole the relation of the Papuan to the
Malayan civilization is very remarkable. An explanation of it is much needed,
and would prove of extreme value for the history of both races. The Papuan has
not merely been receptive of Malay influences, but has also, to some extent, created
and diffused an independent civilization.
C. THE WANDERINGS OF THE MALAYS
ALTHOUGH a certain migratory impulse which is innate in the Papuan has
caused considerable migrations of the race, yet these are completely overshadowed
by the wanderings of the Malay peoples, which are distinctly the most extensive
known to the earlier history of mankind, and doubly so, because the Malays, not
content with spreading over a continent, took to the sea as well, and thus became
a connecting link between the four quarters of the globe.
The expression " Malays," since it is used sometimes in a narrower, sometimes
in a wider sense, has given rise to many misunderstandings and unprofitable dis-
putes. The source of the confusion lies in the circumstance that the name of the
people, which at the period of the European voyages of discovery seemed most
vigorously engaged in war and trade, has been given to the whole ethnic group, of
which it formed only a single, though characteristic, part. This group, for whose
accepted name it is difficult to find a substitute, is a branch of the human race
easily distinguishable from its neighbours and admirably adapted to the nature of
its home, and its homogeneity is further attested by the affinity of the languages
which are spoken by its various branches. We may assume that it was originally
an amalgamation of various primitive races. In Indonesia as in Northern Asia
(cf. p. 130), dolichocephalic peoples appear to have spread first, but soon to have
received an admixture of brae hy cephalic immigrants. A proposal has been made
to designate the first as Indonesians (Protomalays), the latter, as Malays proper,
since traces of the differences between them are demonstrable even at the present
day. The small nation of the Tenggereses on Java, for example, is, according to the
view of J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, a still comparatively pure representative of the
" Indonesian " stock.
It is an idle question to ask for the original home of the two component parts
of the Malay race, in face of the incontestable fact that the kernel of the Malay
nationality occupies at present, as it has occupied since early times, the island
world of Melanesia ; on the other hand, comparatively small fragments of the
stock, with a larger proportion of mixed peoples of partly Malay partly Mongol
elements, are found on the continent of Asia. In this sense Indonesia (see the
accompanying map) is the cradle of the Malay race as a separate group of man-
kind. Indonesia was the starting-point of those marvellous migrations which
it is our immediate intention to examine more closely. The larger islands within
the Malay island world have exercised an isolating and warping influence on the
inhabitants, and thus have produced nations as peculiar as the Batta(k)s on Suma-
tra, the Dyaks on Borneo, and the Tagales on the Philippines ; but this fact must
not shake our conviction that, taken as a whole, the Malay race, as we call it, is a
comparatively definite idea. The later infusions of Indian and Chinese blood,
which are now frequently observable, do not concern the earliest periods.
540 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
(a) The Culture of the Earlier Period of Migration. — At first sight, it ought
not to be a difficult task to describe the culture of those racial elements which
migrated from Indonesia in various directions ; among the descendants of the emi-
grants there are many tribes, especially in Oceania, which have found little oppor-
tunity on solitary islands to acquire new wealth of civilization, and therefore may
have preserved the old conditions in some degree of purity. It must also be possi-
ble even at the present day to determine, by the simple process of sifting and com-
paring the civilizations of the different branches which have differentiated themselves
from the primitive stock, what was the original inheritance which all these had in
common with one another.
But the conditions are by no means so simple. Quite apart from the possible
continuance of changes and further developments in remote regions, we must take
into account the losses of culture which are almost inseparable from extensive
migrations. Polynesia in particular is a region where a settlement without such
losses is almost inconceivable ; the natural conditions are such that it is impossible
to maintain some of the arts of civilization.
If we therefore at the present day, as we advance toward Oceania, cross the
limits within which a large number of crafts and acquisitions are known, if on the
eastern islands of Indonesia iron-smelting ends, if on the Micronesian realm of
islands the knowledge of weaving and the circulation of old East Asiatic or Euro-
pean beads and on Fiji the potter's art cease, the cause of these phenomena is not
immediately clear. It is indeed possible that the inhabitants of Polynesia emi-
grated from their old home at a period when smelting, weaving, and the potter's
art were still unknown ; but it is almost more probable that at least one part of
the civilization possessed by the small coral islands of the oceans has been simply
forgotten and lost, or finds a faint echo in linguistic traces, as the knowledge of
iron on Fiji (according to W. Pleyte). And even in the first case the question
may always remain open whether the different branches of knowledge reached
their present spheres of extension in the suite of migratory tribes, or whether
we may assume a gradual permeation of culture from people to people, which is
possible without migrations on a large scale and may have continued to the pres-
ent day.
The most valuable possession which can furnish information as to earlier times
is the language, but unfortunately there is still an entire want of investigations
which would be directly available for historical enquiry. So much may certainly
be settled, that there are no demonstrable traces of Indian or Chinese elements
in the Polynesian dialects any more than in those of Madagascar. It is thus at
least clear that the great migrations must have taken place before the beginning
of our era.
A proof that Indonesia in ancient times possessed a civilization of its own
nearly independent of external influences is given by the supply of indigenous
plants useful to man which were at the disposal of the inhabitants, even at the
period of the migrations. Granted that the cultivation of useful growths was
j".sted from outside sources, still these suggestions were evidently followed out
imlt'j>endently in Indonesia. Eice, the most valuable cereal of India and South
China, is not an ancient possession of Indonesian culture, which is acquainted in-
stead with the taro (Arum esculentum),t}ie yam (Dioscorea), and sesame. Among
useful trees may be mentioned the bread-fruit palrn (Artocarpus incisa), and per-
Indonesia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 541
haps the cocoa-nut palm, which are widely diffused in the Malayo-Polynesian
region, at any rate. Of useful animals man appears in earlier times to have been
only acquainted with the dog, possibly the pig, but neither the ox nor the horse.
This is again an important fact. On a previous page notice has been called
to the probability that the agriculture of the Old World was older than the cattle-
breeding industry, which in its developed form was only introduced into India by
the Aryans. While therefore in ancient times the practice of agriculture may
have been brought to Indonesia from the mainland, the knowledge of cattle-breed-
ing at the beginning of the migration had not reached the islands by that road.
We are not able to settle any fixed date, but these facts at least confirm the view
that the years of migration fall in a comparatively early period.
The seamanship of the immigrants and the fact that even in Polynesia they
continued to inhabit the coasts and only sparsely peopled the interior of the islands
justify the conclusion that the mass of the migratory bands were sent out from
typical maritime nations. Java, possibly, which favoured the growth of population
by the fertility of its soil, and where prehistoric weapons of polished stone lead us
to assume the existence even in early times of a centre of some civilization, was the
chief starting-point for the migrations, which split up into various, but now hardly
distinguishable, subdivisions. For the most part it would not have been a question
of enormous journeys, but of an advance from island to island, where the immi-
grants would have been content first to occupy a part of the coast, and then, in the
traditional manner, to build up a new system of life by cultivating clearings in the-
primeval forests, by fishing, and by profitable raids. The arts of shipbuilding and
navigation must have reached a comparatively high stage ; double canoes and out-
riggers, which enabled boats to keep out at sea even in bad weather and to cross;
wide expanses of water, must have already been invented. Even at the present day
the boats of the Polynesians, and of the Melanesians, who are closely connected
with them in this respect, are the best which have been made by primitive races,,
while in the Malay Archipelago the imitation of foreign models has already changed
and driven out the old style of shipbuilding. The sail must have been known to-
the ancient inhabitants of Indonesia, and it is more than probable that they under-
stood how to steer their course by the stars and the movement of the waves, and
that they possessed the rudiments of nautical cartography.
The social conditions of the early period certainly encouraged the spirit of ad-
venture. No ethnic group in the world has shown a stronger tendency than the
Malays and Polynesians to encourage the system of male associations as distinct
from families and clans. The younger men, who usually live and sleep together in
a separate bachelors' house, are everywhere organised as a military body, which
often is the ruling force in the community, and, in any event, welcomes adventure
and dangers in a quite different spirit from families or clans burdened with the
anxiety of wives and children. These conditions create a warlike spirit in the-,
people, which regards feuds and raids as the natural course of things, and finds
its most tangible expression in- head-hunting, a custom also peculiar to the Ma-
layo-Polynesian stock. Originating in the habit of erecting the skulls of ances-
tors as sacred relics in the men's quarter, it has led to a morbid passion for
collecting, which provokes continual wars and never allows neighbouring races to-
remain at peace. Thus Indonesia even now retains the traces of a former state-
of things in which bold tribes of navigators and freebooters were produced. •
542 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
(&) Migrations of Earlier Times. — We are here dealing with such remote
epochs that there can be no idea of assigning any precise dates to the different
migrations ; they can therefore only be briefly sketched, in an order which does
not imply any necessary chronological sequence.
A first wave of migration flowed from Indonesia to the north. It is in the
first place very probable that Malay tribes settled in the Philippines at a later
period than in the great Sunda Islands, the proper home of the true Malay life ;
but for this nation of skilful seamen it was only a step across from the Philippines
to Formosa, where tribes of unmistakably Malay origin are still living. This can
hardly have been the ultimate goal. There are numerous traces on the mainland
of South China which point to an immigration of Malays. Again, the peculiarity
of the Japanese is best explained by an admixture of Malay blood ; it is indeed not
inconceivable (see p. 3) that the political evolution which began in the south
was due to the seafaring Malays who first set foot on the southern islands and
mixed with the existing inhabitants and with immigrants from Corea. Since this
political organisation took place about 660 B. c., the migration might be assigned
to a still earlier time. The first migration northward was also followed by a sub-
sequent one, which reached as far at least as the Philippines, if not farther.
A second stream of emigrants was directed toward the east. On the Melane-
sian islands, which since early times were occupied by a dark-skinned race, numer-
ous Malay colonies were founded, which exercised a marked influence on the
Melanesians, but were gradually, and to some degree, absorbed. Even the conti-
nent of Australia must have received a strong infusion of Malay blood. The Malay
migratory spirit found freer scope on the infinite island world of the Pacific, and
weighty facts support the view that isolated settlers readied even the shores of
Northwest America. How those voyages were made and what periods of time
they required is not known to us. Only the tradition of New Zealand tells us in
semi-mythical fashion how the first immigrants, with their families and gods, took
the dangerous voyage from Sawaii and Earotonga (p. 307) to their new home in
their immense double canoes.
The third ethnic wave rose in Indonesia, where volcanic shocks and racial dis-
turbances are equally abundant, swept over the Indian Ocean, and bore westward
to Madagascar the first germs of a Malay population (cf. p. 573); the Aral tic
" Book of Miracles " relates an expedition of three hundred sails from Wa-kwak to
Madagascar for the year 945. Possibly even the African coast was reached in this
movement, although no permanent settlements were made there.
Thus we see that, at least a thousand years ago, the Malay race spread over a
region which extends from the shores of America to the mainland of Africa over
almost two-thirds of the circumference of the earth. The Malay o-Polyuesians have
kept aloof from the continents : the oceans studded with islands are the inheritance
of their race, which has had no rival in the command of the seas except the Euro-
pean group of Aryan nations in our own days.
(c) The Mir/rations of the Malays in the Stricter Sense. — If the lessons of
comparative philology and ethnology supply all our knowledge of the old migra-
tions, we have, in compensation, another ethnic movement more directly under our
eyes, which also began with members of the Malay race, and which, although it
hardly crossed the boundaries of Indonesia, forms nevertheless a fitting counterpart
Indonesia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 543
to earlier events. The name of Malays did not originally belong to the whole race,
but only to one definite people of the Archipelago (p. 539), and it is this very
people which by its migrations in more modern times has reproduced primitive
history on a small scale, and thus shown itself worthy to give its name to the
whole group of restless peoples. Probably, indeed, it was not even the whole stock
with which we are at present concerned that bore the name of Malay, but only the
most prominent subdivision of it.
The original home of the people lay on Sumatra in the district of Menangka-
bau. The name " Malayu " is applied to the island of Sumatra even by Ptolemy, and
in 1150 the Arabian geographer Edrisi mentions an island Malai, which carried on
a brisk trade in spices. Indian civilization, it would seem, had considerable influ-
ence on Menangkabau, for according to the native traditions of the Malays it was
Sri Turi Bumana, a prince of Indian or Javanese descent (according to the legend
he traced his lineage to Alexander the Great), who led a part of the people over
the sea to the peninsula of Malacca and in 1160 founded the centre of his power
in Singapore. The new State is said to have aroused the jealousy of a powerful
Javanese realm, presumably Modyopahit, and Singapore was ultimately conquered
in the year 1252 by the Javanese. A new Malay capital, Malacca, was subse-
quently founded on the mainland. In the year 1276 the reigning chief together
with his people were converted to Islam. The Malays, who had found on the
peninsula only timid forest tribes of poor physique, multiplied in course of time
so enormously that it became necessary to send out new colonies, and Malay
traders and settlers appeared on all the coast districts of West Indonesia. Toward
the close of the thirteenth century the State of Malacca was far more powerful
than the old Menangkabau, and became the political and ethnical centre of Malay
life. The result was that the true insular Malays apparently spread from the
mainland over the island world of the East Indies. The Malay settlers played
to some extent the role of State builders, especially in Borneo, where Brunei
in the north was a genuine Malay State ; others were formed on the west coast.
The Malays mixed everywhere with the aborigines, and made their language the
common dialect of intercourse for the Sunda Islands.
The Bugi on the Celebes also spread over a wide area from their original
homes. Trifling as all these modern events may be in comparison with those
of old times, still they teach us to grasp the conditions prevailing in the past,
and to realise the possibility of migrations as comprehensive as those which the
Malayo-Polynesians accomplished.
D. FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
THE influences of the voyages and settlements were not so powerful as those
foreign forces which were continually at work owing to the favourable position of
the islands for purposes of intercourse. Asiatic nations had long sought out the
Archipelago, had founded settlements, and had been able occasionally to exercise
some political influence. The islands were, indeed, not only half-way houses for
communication between Eastern Asia and the west, but they themselves offered
coveted treasures ; first and foremost among these were spices, the staple of the
Indian trade ; gold and diamonds were found in the mines of Borneo, and there
were many other valuable products. The Chinese from East Asia obtained a
544 HISTORY OF THE WORLD ^chapter v
footing in the Malay Archipelago ; from the west came the agents of the Indo-
nesian and East Asiatic commerce, — the Hindus first, then the Arabs, and soon
after them the first Europeans, the present rulers of the Indonesian island world.
(a) The Chinese. — The Chinese are not a seafaring nation in the correct
acceptation of the word (cf. Vol. I, p. 575). It was only when they acquired,
after the conquest of South China, a seaboard with good harbours, and mixed
at the same time with the old seafaring population, that a maritime trade with the
rich tropical regions of Indonesia began to flourish ; only perhaps as a continuation
of an older commerce, which had been originated by the northward migration
of the Malayan race, and consequently lay in the hands of Malayan tribes. Since
South China therefore came into the possession of China in 220 B. c. (p. 74), it
must have been subsequent to that time, and probably much later, that the influ-
ence of the Chinese was fully felt by the inhabitants of the Archipelago. Per-
manent connections with Annam can hardly have been established before the
Christian era (p. 529). It was not the love of a seafaring life that incited the
Chinese to travel, but the commercial instinct, that appeared as soon as other
nations commanded the commerce and sought out the Chinese in their own
ports. The Chinese fleet then quickly dwindled, the number of voyages lessened,
and the merchants of the Celestial Empire found it safer and more convenient
to trade with foreigners at home, than to entrust their precious lives to the thin
planks of a vessel (cf. p. 592). But the stream of emigration from overpopulated
China developed independently of these occurrences, and turned by preference,
whether in native or foreign ships, toward the East Indian Archipelago, in many
countries of which it produced important ethnical changes.
Very contradictory views are entertained about the extent of the oldest Chinese
maritime trade, and especially about the question, with which we are not here
so much concerned, of the distance which Chinese vessels sailed toward the west.
It appears from the annals of the Liang dynasty, which reigned in the first half of
the sixth century of our era (p. 89), that the Chinese were already acquainted with
some ports on the Malacca Straits which clearly served as marts for the trade
between India and the farther East. As early as the fifth century commercial
relations had been developed with Java, stimulated perhaps by the journeys
of the Buddhist missionary Fa hien (pp. 82 and 409), who, driven out of his course
by a storm to Java, brought back to China more precise information as to the
island. The south of Sumatra also at that time maintained communications
with China. The political system of Java was sufficiently well organised to facili-
tate the establishment of a comparatively secure and profitable trade. From these
islands the Chinese obtained precious metals, tortoise shell, ivory, cocoa-nuts, and
sugar-cane ; and the commodities which they offered in return were mainly
cotton and silk stuffs. There are constant allusions to presents sent by Indone-
sian princes, on whom the Chinese court bestowed high-sounding titles, seals
of office, and occasionally diplomatic support. In the year 1129 one such prince
received the title of king of Java. Disputes between the settled Chinese mer-
chants (who plainly showed even thus early a tendency to form State within
State) and the Javanese princes led, in later times, to not infrequent interruptions
of this commercial intercourse ; indeed, after the conquest of China by the
Mongols (p. 95) hostile complications were produced. A Mongol-Chinese army
Indones
<*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 545
invaded Java in the year 1293, after it had secured a strategic base on the island
of Billiton, but it was forced to sail away without any tangible results. During
the age of the Ming dynasty the trade was once more flourishing, and we can
even trace some political influence exercised by China (p. 101). In the years
1405-1407 a Chinese fleet was stationed in the Archipelago ; its admiral enforced
the submission of a number of chieftains, and brought the ruler of Palembang
prisoner to China (cf. p. 557).
The coasts of Borneo, which were touched at on every voyage to and from
Java, soon attracted a similar influx of Chinese merchants, to whom the wealth
of Borneo in gold and diamonds was no secret. The kingdom of Polo, in the north
of the island, which appears in the Chinese annals for the first time in the seventh
century, was regularly visited by the Chinese in the tenth century. On the west
coast, Puni, whose prince sent an embassy to China for the first time in 977, was
a much-frequented town, while Banjermassin, now the most prosperous trading
place, is not mentioned until 1368.
As the spread of Islam with its consequences more and more crippled the
trade of the Chinese with the Sunda Islands, they turned their attention to a,
nearer but hitherto much-neglected sphere, the Philippines. There too the Malay
tribes were carrying on a brisk commerce before the Chinese encroached and
established themselves on different points along the coast. This step was taken
in the fourteenth century at latest. But then the Chinese trader was already
followed by emigrants, who settled in large numbers on the newly discovered
territory, mixed with the aborigines, and in this way, just as in North Borneo,
called into life new Chinese-Malay tribes. When, after the interference of the
Spaniards, the Chinese traders withdrew or were restricted to definite localities,
these mixed tribes remained behind in the country.
To sum up, it may be said that the Chinese, both here and in Indonesia, exer-
cised a certain amount of political influence, and produced some minor ethnic
changes, and that they are even now still working in this latter direction ; on the
other hand, the intellectual influence of China has not been great, and cannot be
compared even remotely with that of the Indians and Arabs. Chinamen and
Malays clearly are not in sympathy with each other. At the present day a large
share of the trade of the Archipelago once more lies in Chinese hands, the immi-
gration has enormously increased, and the " yellow peril " is nowhere so noticeable
as there ; but Indonesia must not, in any way, be called for this reason an offshoot
of Chinese civilization. The Chinaman shares with the European the fate of exer-
cising little influence on the intellectual life of the Malay. The cause in both
cases was the same ; both races appeared first and foremost as traders and rulers,
but kindled no flame of religious zeal. The Chinaman failed because he was indif-
ferent to all religious questions ; the European, because Islam with its greater
power of enlisting followers prevented Christianity, on which it had stolen a long
inarch, from exerting any influence. It is possible that in earlier times the Chinese
helped Buddhism to victory in Indonesia, but at present we possess no certain
information on the subject.
(b) The Inhabitants of India. — The inhabitants of India have influenced their
insular neighbours quite differently from the Chinese. They brought to them,
together with an advanced civilization, a new religion, or rather two religions>
VOL. II— 35
546 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
which were destined to strike root side by side in the Archipelago, — Brahmanisra
and Buddhism. The Hindus and the other inhabitants of India, who have gained
their civilization from them, are as little 'devoted to seafaring as the Chinese, for
the coasts of India are comparatively poor in good harbours. Probably the first to
cross the Bay of Bengal were the sea-loving inhabitants of the Sunda Islands
themselves, who first as bold pirates, like the Norwegian Vikings, ravaged the
coasts, but also sowed the first seeds of commerce. But after this the inhabitants
of the coasts of Nearer India, who hitherto had kept up a brisk intercourse only
with Arabia and the Persian Gulf, found something very attractive in the inter-
course with Indonesia, which first induced some enterprising merchants to sail to
the islands with their store of spices, until at last an organised and profitable trade
was opened. Many centuries, however, must needs pass before the spiritual in-
fluence of Indian culture really made itself felt.
Since the Hindu has as little taste for recording history as the Malay, the
beginning of the intercourse between the two groups of peoples can only be settled
by indirect evidence. John Crawfurd (1783-1868) in this connection relies on
the fact that the two articles of trade peculiar to Indonesia, and in earlier times
procurable from no other source, were the clove and the nutmeg. The first appear-
ance of these products on the Western markets must, accordingly, give an indica-
tion of the latest date at which the intercourse of Nearer India with the Malay
Archipelago can have been systematically developed. Both these spices were
named among the articles imported to Alexandria for the first time in the age
of Marcus Aurelius, that is to say, about 180 A. D., while a century earlier the
" Periplus of the Erythraean Sea " does not mention them. If, then, we reflect
that a certain time would have been required to familiarise the natives of India
with these spices before there was any idea of shipping them further, and that
perhaps on the first trading voyages, which must necessarily have been directed
toward the straits of Malacca, products of that region first, and afterward the
spices which flourish in the more distant parts of the Archipelago, had been ex-
changed, we are justified in placing the beginnings of the Indian-Malay trade in
the first century of our chronology. This theory is supported by the mention in
the " Periplus " of voyages by the inhabitants of India to the " Golden Cherso-
nese," by which is probably meant the peninsula of Malacca. Chinese accounts
lead us to suppose that at this time Indian merchants had even reached the south
coast of China. At a later period more detailed accounts of Indonesia reached the
Gneco-Roman world. Even before cloves and nutmegs appeared in the trade-lists
of Alexandria, Ptolemy, the geographer, had already inserted on his map of the
world the names " Malayu " (p. 543) and " Jawa." Various other facts point to the
position of the island of Java as the centre of the civilization of Indonesia, and
the emporium for the commerce which some centuries later was destined to allure
L'Yt'ii the ponderous junks of the Chinese (cf. p. 544) to a voyage along their coasts.
Following in the tracks of the merchants, and perhaps themselves condescend-
ing to do a stroke of business, Indian priests gradually came to the islands and
won reputation and importance there. India itself, however, at the beginning of
the Christian era, was not a united country from the religious point of view.
Buddhism, like an invading torrent, had destroyed the old Brahma creed, had
shattered the caste system, and had then sent out its missionaries to achieve
success in almost all the surrounding countries (p. 409). But it had not
in^nena-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 547
been able to overthrow the old religion of the land ; Brahmanism once more as-
serted itself with an inexhaustible vitality. At the present day Buddhism has
virtually disappeared in its first home, while the old creed has again obtained a'n
almost exclusive dominion. The growth of Hindu influence in Indonesia falls in
the transition period when the two forms of religion existed side by side, and the
religious disputes with India are not without importance for this outpost of Indian
culture. Buddhists and Brahmans come on the scene side by side, often avowedly
as rivals, although it remains doubtful whether the schism led to any warlike com-
plications. The fortunes of the two sects in the Malay Archipelago are remark-
ably like those of their co-religionists in India. In the former region Buddhism
was temporarily victorious, and left its mark on the most glorious epoch of Java-
nese history ; but Brahmanism showed greater vitality, and has not even yet been
entirely quenched, while the Buddhist faith only speaks to us from the gigantic
ruins of its temples.
The thought is suggested that the Brahman Hindus came from a different part
of the peninsula to the Buddhist. James Fergusson conjectured the home of the
Buddhist immigrants to be in Gujerat and at the mouth of the Indus, arid that of
the Brahman to be in Telingana and at the mouth of the Kistiia. The architec-
ture of the Indian temples on Java and the language of the Sanscrit inscriptions
found there lend colour to this view. "We may mention, however, that recently it
has been asserted by H. Kern and J. Groneman, great authorities on Buddhism,
that the celebrated temples of Boro-budur must have been erected 850-900 by
followers of the southern Buddhists (Hinayana ; figures of Buddha with the right
shoulder bared), whose sect, for example, predominated on South Sumatra in the
kingdom of Sri-Bhodja. Brahmans and Buddhists certainly did not appear con-
temporaneously in Java. The most ancient temples were certainly not erected
by Buddhists, but by worshippers of Vishnu (p. 410) in the fifth century A. D.
Some inscriptions found in West Java, which may also be ascribed to followers of
Vishnu, date from the same century. The Chinese Buddhist Fa hien, who visited
the island about this time, mentions the Hindus, but does not appear to have
found any members of his own faith there. According to this view the Indians
of the Coromandel coast would have first established commercial relations with
Indonesia ; it was only later that they were followed by the inhabitants of the
northwest coast of India, who, being also connected with the civilized countries of
the West, gave a great stimulus to trade, and became the leading spirits of the
Indian colony in Java. This, then, explains the later predominance of Buddhism
in the Malay Archipelago.
In the eighth century A. D. the immigration of the Hindus, including in their
number many Buddhists, seems to have increased in Java to an extraordinary
extent; the construction of a Buddhist temple at Kalasan in the year 779 is
recorded in inscriptions. The victory of Indian civilization was then confirmed ;
the rulers turned with enthusiasm to the new forms of belief, and spent their
accumulated riches in the erection of vast temples modelled upon those of India.
From Java, which was then the political centre of the Archipelago, the culture
and religion of the Hindus spread to the neighbouring islands, to Sumatra, South
Borneo, and other parts of the Archipelago. The most easterly points where Bud-
dhism achieved any results were the island of Ternate and the islet of Tobi,
northeast of Halmahera, which already formed a stepping-stone to Micronesia.
548 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
At that time Pali was the language of the educated classes. The Indian systems
of writing stimulated the creation of native scripts even among those tribes which,
like the Battaks in the interior of Sumatra, were but slightly affected in other
respects by the wave of civilization. The influence of India subsequently dimin-
ished. In the fifteenth century it once more revived, a fact that may certainly be
connected with the political condition of Java. Since Buddhism had at this time
almost disappeared in Nearer India, this revival implies also a strengthening of the
Brahman doctrine, which had survived, therefore, the fall of the Indian civilization
(vide the figures from Bali illustrating a Brahman legend, p. 568).
(c) The Arabs. — In the meantime the victorious successors to Hinduism, the
Islamitic Arabs, had appeared upon the scene. The Arabian trade to Egypt and
India had flourished before the time of Mahomet, and had received the products
of Indonesia from the hands of the Indian merchants and transmitted them to
the civilized peoples of the West. It is possible that Arabian traders may have
early reached Java without gaining any influence there. It was Islam which first
stamped the wanderings of the Arabs with their peculiar character ; it changed
harmless traders into the teachers of a new doctrine, whose simplicity stood in
happy contrast to the elaborate theology of the Hindus, and to the degenerate creed
of Buddha, which could have retained little of its original purity in the Malay
Archipelago. The new duties which his religion now imposed on the Arabian
merchant inspired him with a fresh spirit for adventure, and with a boldness
that did not shrink from crossing the Indian Ocean. The rise of the Caliphate,,
which drew to itself all the wealth of the Orient, secured to the bold mariners
and traders a market for their wares and handsome profits. Basra then attained
prosperity, and was the point from which those daring voyages were made whose
fame is re-echoed in the marvellous adventures of Sindbad the Sailor in the Arabian
Nights, and Oman on the Persian Gulf became an important emporium ; but even
the older ports in Southern Arabia competed with their new rivals, and still retained
the trade at least with Egypt.
The voyages of the Arabs at the time of the Caliphate form the first stage in the
connections between Indonesia and the world of Islam, which seem at first to have
been of a purely commercial character. The enterprising spirit of the Arabian
merchants soon led them, after once the first steps had been taken, beyond the
Malay Archipelago to the coasts of China, which, in the year 850, were already
connected with Oman in the Persian Gulf by a flourishing maritime trade. This,
however, necessitated the growth of stations for the transit trade in Indonesia
itself, where Arabian traders permanently settled and, as we can easily understand,
(.•mlt-avoured to win supporters for Islam. Even then conversions on a large scale
might have resulted had not the overthrow of the Caliphate gradually caused an
extraordinary decline in the Arabian trade, and consequently in the influence of
the Arabs throughout Indonesia.
A new stimulus was given to the intercourse between the States of Islam and
the Malay Archipelago when, at the time of the Crusades, the Mohammedan
world regained its power, and the kingdom of the Saracens flourished, about
1200 A. D. Nevertheless, Islam appears to have achieved little success at that time
in Indonesia, apart possibly from the conversion of Mohammed Shah, a Malay
prince resident in Malacca; this event, which, according to a somewhat untrust-
m^nesia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 549
worthy account, occurred in 1276, was of great importance for the future, since the
Malays in the narrower sense became the most zealous Mohammedans of the
Archipelago.
The third great revival of trade, produced by the prosperity of the Turkish and
Egyptian empires in the fourteenth century, prepared the way for the victory of the
new doctrine, which was permanently decided by the acquisition of Java. The
first unsuccessful attempt at a Mohammedan movement on Java took place in
1328 ; a second, equally futile, was made in 1391. But little by little the continu-
ous exertions of the Arabian merchants, who soon found ready helpers among the
natives, and had won sympathisers in the Malays of Malacca, prepared the ground
for the final victory of the Mohammedan doctrine. The Brahmans, whose religion,
as now appeared, had struck no deep roots among the people, offered a feeble and
ineffectual resistance to the new creed. The fall of the kingdom of Modyopahit,
which had been the refuge of the Indian religious party, completely destroyed
Brahmanism in Java in the year 1478.
(d) The Europeans. — Victory cheered the missionaries of Islam at the end.
A few decades later the first Europeans appeared in the Archipelago. They, indeed,
were fated to win the political supremacy, but their spiritual influence was not
equal to that of Islam.
(a) The Portuguese. — The Portuguese admiral, Diogo Lopez de Sequeira
(p. 482), and his men, when they appeared in the year 1509 on tbe coast of
Sumatra, were certainly not the first navigators of European race to set foot on the
shores of the Malay Islands. Many a bold trader may have pushed his way thus
far in earlier times ; but the first traveller in. whom the European spirit of
exploration and strength of purpose were embodied, the great Venetian, Marco
Polo (p. 96), had visited the islands in the year 1295, and reached home safely
after a prosperous voyage. No brisk intercourse with Europe could be main-
tained, however, until a successful attempt had been made, in 1497-1498, to
circumnavigate the southern extremity of Africa, and thus discover the direct
sea route to the East Indies (p. 450). After that, the region was soon opened up.
The first expedition under Sequeira with difficulty escaped annihilation, as it
was attacked, by order of the native prince, while anchoring in the harbour of
Malacca. In any case the governor Alfonso d' Albuquerque, when he was on his
way to Malacca, in 1511, had a splendid excuse to hand for adopting a vigorous
policy and plundering the Malay merchantmen as he passed. Since the sultan of
Malacca offered no satisfactory indemnity, war was declared with him ; the town
was captured after a hard fight, and was made into a strong base for the Portu-
guese power. Albuquerque then attempted to establish communications with
Java, and made preparations to enter into closer relations with the Spice Islands
in the East, the Moluccas. After his departure repeated efforts were made to
recover Malacca from the Portuguese, but the fort held out.
The Portuguese had followed on the tracks of the Arabs as far as Malacca, the
crossing point of the Indian and East Asiatic trade, and they naturally cherished
the wish of advancing to China and thus securing the trade with that country.
A fleet under Fernao Perez d'Andrade sailed in the year 1516 from Malacca, and,
after an unsuccessful preliminary attempt, reached Canton in 1517. Communica-
550 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
tions with the Moluccas had already been formed in 1512 through the efforts of
Francisco Serrao, and since the Portuguese interfered in the disputes of the
natives, the commander of their squadron, Antonio de Brito, soon succeeded in
acquiring influence there, and in founding a fort on Ternate in 1522. They were
unpleasantly disturbed in their plans by the small Spanish squadron of Magalhaes
(or Magellan), who had been killed on Matan on April 27 (Vol. I, p. 586) ; this fleet,
after crossing the Pacific, appeared on November 8, 1521, off Tidor, and tried to
enforce the claims of the king of Spain to the Moluccas.
Generally speaking, it was clear, even then, that the Portuguese could not pos-
sibly be in a position to make full use of the enormous tract of newly discovered
territory, or even to colonise it. There was never any idea of a real conquest even
of the coast districts. A large part of the available forces must have been employed
in holding Malacca and keeping the small Malay predatory States in check, while
the wars with China made further demands. The Malay prince of Bintang, in
particular, with his large fleet continually threatened the Portuguese possessions on
the strait of Malacca, and after 1523 caused great distress in the colony until his
capital was destroyed in 1527. The position of the Portuguese on the Moluccas
was also far from secure, since the State of Tidor, which was friendly to Spain,
showed intense hostility. Commercial relations had been established since 1522
with the State of Sunda in western Java, but the permission to plant a settle-
ment in the country itself was refused. On Sumatra, where Menangkabau was
visited by the Portuguese as early as 1514, some petty States recognised the
suzerainty of Portugal ; Acheh (Achin), on the contrary, was able to assert its
independence, while attempts to establish intercourse with Borneo were not made
until 1530.
In the same year new disturbances broke out on the Moluccas, since the
encroachments of the Portuguese commanders, who had taken the king of
Ternate prisoner, had incensed the subjects of this ally. When the new com-
mander-in-chief, Gonzalo Pereira, to crown all, declared that the clove trade was
the monopoly of the Portuguese government, the indignation was so intense
that the queen ordered him to be murdered, and the lives of the other Portu-
guese were in the greatest jeopardy. Peace was restored with the utmost diffi-
culty. Fresh disorders were due to that corrupt mob of adventurers who ruled
the islands in the name of the king of Portugal, abandoned themselves to the
most licentious excesses, and undermined their authority by dissensions among
themselves. The governor, Tristao de Taide, brought matters to such a pitch
that all the princes of the Moluccas combined against him (1533) ; his successor,
Antonio Galvao, at last ended the war with considerable good fortune, and
restored the prestige of Portugal on the Spice Islands. His administration cer-
tainly marked the most prosperous epoch of Portuguese rule in those parts.
Later, the struggles recommenced, and finally, in 1580, led to the evacuation
of Ternate by the Portuguese and their settlement in Tidor.
Thus the influence of the Portuguese was restricted to parts of the Moluccas
and some places on the strait of Malacca. Indonesia was in most respects only
the thoroughfare for the Chino-Japanese trade, which at first developed with as
much promise as the East-Asiatic missions (p. 102). The principal station of the
trade continued to be Malacca, notwithstanding its dangerous position between
States of Malay pirates and the powerful Acheh on Sumatra.
Monena-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 551
The history of Spanish colonisation in the Malay Archipelago is almost entirely
bound up with the history of the Philippines ; the reader will therefore consult
pp. 569-572.
(/3) The Dutch. — The Portuguese rule in Indonesia was as brief as that in
India (p. 452). At the end of the sixteenth century the two nations which were
destined to enter on the rich inheritance, the Dutch and the English, began their
first attempts at commerce and colonisation in the Indian waters. The Dutch in
particular, through their war with Spain, which crippled the hitherto prosperous
trade with the American colonies, were compelled to seek new fields for their
activity. Their eyes were turned to India when Portugal, weakened rather than
strengthened by the union with Spain (1580), tried in vain to enforce its influence
over a vast tract of territory ; even without at once becoming hostile competitors
to Portuguese trade, the Dutch merchants might hope to discover virgin lands,
whose exploitation promised rich gains.
The first Dutch fleet set sail from Texel on April 2, 1595, under the command
of Cornells de Houtmans (p. 453), a rough adventurer, and anchored on June 2,
1596, off Bantam, the chief trading port of Java. This expedition did little to
secure the friendship of the natives, owing to the bad qualities of the commander ;
but at the least it paved the way for further enterprise. In the course of a few
years a number of small trading companies arose, which only succeeded in interfer-
ing with each other and causing mutual ruin, until they were finally combined,
through the co-operation of Oldenbarneveld and Prince Maurice, on March 20,
1602, into a large company, "the Universal Dutch United East India Company."
This company soon obtained possessions in the Malay Archipelago, and after 1632
exercised full sovereign sway over its territory.
The company founded a permanent settlement in Bantam, whose prince made
friendly overtures, and took over the already existing trading enterprises in Ter-
nate, Amboina, and Banda, the existence of which proves incidentally that even
the Dutch had at once tried to win their share of the spice trade. Disputes in
consequence arose on the Moluccas in 1603, when the natives, exasperated by the
oppression of the Portuguese and Spaniards, took the side of the Dutch. The
undertakings of the company were, however, first put on a systematic basis in
the year 1609, when the office of a governor-general was created, at whose side the
" Council of India " was placed, and thus a sort of independent government was
established in the Archipelago. The Spaniards now suffered a complete defeat.
And when in their place the English appeared and entered into serious compe-
tition with the company, they found themselves confronted by the governor-
general, Jan Pieterszon Coen, a man who, competent to face all dangers, finally
consolidated the supremacy of the Dutch. The English tried in vain to acquire
influence on Java by help of the sultan of Bantam. Coen defeated his oppo-
nents, removed the Dutch settlement to Jacatra, where he founded in the year
1619 the future centre of Dutch power, Batavia, and compelled Bantam, whose
trade was thus greatly damaged, to listen to terms. " We have set foot on Java
and acquired power in the country," Coen wrote to the directors of the company ;
" see and reflect what bold courage can achieve ! " To his chagrin the Dutch
government, from considerations of European policy, determined to admit the
English again to the Archipelago. This proceeding led to numerous complications,
552 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
and finally to the execution of a number of Englishmen, who had apparently tried
to capture the Dutch ports on Amboina. Coen's whole energies were required to
hold Batavia, which was besieged in 1628 by the Javanese. His death, which
occurred in that same year, was a heavy blow to the Dutch power.
The influence of the company, however, was now sufficiently assured to with-
stand slight shocks. The Portuguese had been little by little driven back and forced
almost entirely to abandon the East Asiatic trade. The English found a field for
their activity in India, and the Spaniards retained the Philippines, but were com-
pelled in 1663 definitely to waive all claim to the Moluccas. Java and the Spice
Islands were the bases of the Dutch power, which reached its greatest prosperity
under the governor-general, Anton van Diemen (1636-1645). Malacca was then
conquered, a friendly understanding established with the princes of Java, and
Batavia enlarged and fortified in every way. Soon afterward the sea route to the
East Indies was secured by the founding of one station at the Cape of Good Hope
and another on Mauritius. But in this connection the huckstering spirit of the
trading company was unpleasantly shown in the regulations which were passed
for the maintenance of the spice monopoly in the Moluccas, and were fraught with
the most lamentable consequences for the native population.
Greater attention was now gradually paid to the hitherto neglected islands of
the Archipelago, especially as Formosa (captured in 1624) in 1662 was lost to the
Chinese. The attempts to set foot on Borneo met at first with little success ; on
the other hand, factories were founded on different points of the coast of Sumatra,
and in the year 1667 the prince of Macassar on Celebes was conquered and com-
pelled to conclude a treaty to the advantage of the company. In Java the influ-
ence of the Dutch continually increased ; Bantam was humbled in 1684, and the
final withdrawal of the English from Java was the result. But even in later times
there were many severe struggles.
Like all the great sovereign trading companies of the age of discovery the
Dutch East India Company enjoyed but a short period of prosperity. The old
spirit of enterprise died away ; a niggardly pettiness spread more and more, and
produced a demoralising effect on the servants of the company, although their
dangerous posts and the tropical climate must have served as an excuse in any
case for numerous excesses. In 1731 the governor-general, Diederick Durven,
had to be recalled, after barely two years of office, on account of unparalleled
misconduct ; but the state of things did not improve appreciably even after his
departure. The misgovernment weighed most heavily on the Chinese merchants
and workmen who were settled in the towns. At last, in Java, this part of the
population which was essentially untrustworthy, and had always been aiming at
political influence, was driven into open revolt. Since the Chinese rendered the
vicinity of Batavia insecure, the citizens armed themselves, and at the order of
the governor-general, Adrian Valckenier, massacred all the Chinese in the town
(October, 1740). But it was only after a long series of fights that the insurgents,
who had formed an alliance with Javanese princes, were completely defeated, and
the opportunity was seized of once more extending the territory of the company.
The strength of the company was based on its jealously guarded trade
monopoly ; a blow directed at that was necessarily keenly felt. It was observed
in Holland with a justifiable anxiety that the English, whose naval power was
growing to be the first in the world, once more directed their activities to the East
intone^-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 553
Indies, and came into competition with the company not only on the mainland, but
also on Sumatra and the Moluccas, answering all remonstrances with thinly veiled
menaces. The mouldering officialism of the Dutch company was totally unable
to cope with this fresh energy. While individuals amassed wealth, the income of
the company diminished, and all profits had to be sacrificed on the unceasing wars
with Malay pirates and similar costly undertakings.
Toward the close of the eighteenth century the States-General were compelled
to aid the helpless sovereign company by sending a small fleet of warships. But
when the Netherlands after their transformation into the "Batavian Eepublic"
(January 26, 1795) were involved in war with England, the fate of the company
was sealed ; it fell as an indirect victim of the French Kevolution. The Cape set-
tlement first went ; then Ceylon and all the possessions in India were lost. In 1795,
Malacca also fell, and a year later Amboina and Banda were taken. Ternate alone
offered any resistance. Java, which for the moment was not attacked by the Eng-
lish, was soon almost the only relic of the once wide realm of the company which,
harassed with debts and enfeebled by the political situation at home, could only
hold out a few years longer by desperate means. The company was dissolved in
the year 1798, and the "Batavian Kepublic" took over its possessions in 1800.
The change of the republic into a kingdom held at the will of Napoleon (May
26, 1806), and the French occupation of Holland (July 9, 1810), involved further
important consequences for the East Asiatic possessions. The English took advan-
tage of the propitious moment to become masters of the colonies which had now
become French, and in the year 1811, as a final blow, equipped an expedition
against Java. Its success was complete ; Batavia fell without any resistance, and
the small Dutch army, which held out for a short time in the vicinity of the capi-
tal, was forced to surrender on September 18. England took possession of the
Dutch colonies, and proved her loyalty to those great principles which have raised
her to be the first maritime and commercial power of the world, by abolishing the
monopolies and establishing free trade. But the precipitate introduction of these
reforms and other injudicious measures soon led to all sorts of conflicts and dis-
orders, which deprived the English government of any advantage which might
otherwise have been gained from their new possession. After the fall of Napoleon
the Netherlands, by the treaty of London of August 13, 1814, received back the col-
onies which had been taken from them, with the exception of the Cape and Ceylon.
On June 24, 1816, the Dutch commissioners at Batavia took over the government
from the hands of the English commander. Nevertheless, the English soon after-
ward struck a severe blow directly at the Dutch colony, by adding to their pos-
sessions on Malacca, which had been held since 1786, the island of Singapore, which
they acquired by purchase, and by establishing there in a short time a flourishing
emporium for world trade. Batavia was the chief loser by this, and its population
soon sank to the half of what it had formerly been.
The dissolution of the company and the English reforms had broken down the
narrow-spirited system of monopolies, and the Dutch government had no option
but to conform to the altered conditions. A small country, however, like Holland
could not, from economic reasons, adhere to the English system of free trade, nor
waive all direct national revenue, and in its place await the indirect results of
unrestricted commerce ; the colonies were compelled not only to support them-
selves and the colonial army which had now been formed, but also to provide for a
554 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
surplus. Thus the spice monopoly on the Moluccas, which had been successfully
al >t dished, was reintroduced, though in a somewhat modified form and less profit-
ably than before, since in the interval the cultivation of spices had been introduced
into other parts of the tropical world. The bulk of the revenue had to be supplied
by the patient population of Java, which since 1830, in accordance with a scheme
drawn up by the governor-general, Jan von den Bosch (cultuurstelsel), was employed
on a large scale in forced labour on the government plantations, and was also
burdened by heavy taxes. The Dutch possessions from that time were no longer
menaced by foreign enemies ; but the colonial army had to suppress many insur-
rections and conquer new territories for Holland. The Dutch, by slow degrees and
in various ways, obtained the undisputed command of the Indian Archipelago. In
the large islands of Sumatra and Borneo for a long time they only exercised a more
or less acknowledged influence on the coasts, while the interior even at the present
day does not everywhere obey their rule ; in any case the coast districts gave them
much work to do, as their desperate battles with Acheh (Achin) prove. The
native princes were almost everywhere left in possession of their titles ; but on
many occasions the Dutch, not reluctantly perhaps, were forced to take different
districts under their immediate government. The splendid training which their
colonial officials received assured the success of the Dutch.
A great change in the internal conditions began in the year 1868. The
situation of the natives on Java, which had become intolerable (and still more
perhaps the knowledge that, in spite of all the forced labour, the profits of the
government plantations did not realise expectations), led to the abolition of the
'• and the former unsound and extravagant methods of working. The cam-
paign which the Dutch poet and former colonial official Eduard Douwes Dekker
( Multatuli; cf. above, p. 535) had conducted since 1859 against the abuses in the
government contributed to this result, although for a long time no direct effects
of his attacks were noticeable. The coffee monopoly, indeed, was left, though
somewhat modified ; so, too, the principle that the native should be left to work on
his own account, and that then the results of his labour be compulsorily bought
from him at a very low price is still enforced, since the balance of the Indian
finances must be maintained. It was possible to abandon the Javanese system of
forced labour without excessive loss owing to the fact that the development of
tobacco-growing on Sumatra (since 1864) and of coffee-growing on Celebes opened
up new sources of revenue. Accordingly in 1873 the antiquated spice monopoly
on the Moluccas was finally abolished without inflicting an insupportable blow on
the State finances.
The scientific exploration of the region has been commenced and carried out in.
a very thorough fashion. From many points of view the Dutch possessions are
models for the colonial administrator ; and in spite of all mistakes the earlier de-
velopment shows how a small European people can succeed in ruling an infinitely
larger number of unstable Asiatics, and in making them profitable to itself.
E. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF INDONESIA IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
(a) Java. — Java is far from being the largest island of the Archipelago, but
it is (•(.•rtaiiily the most fertile; so that it can support a very dense population; it
Indonesia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 555
is also the most accessible, and consequently was the first and favourite resort of
traders. It is true that culture has only been able to take root easily on the com-
paratively flat north coast with its abundance of harbours, while the steep south
coast, which looks out on a sea seldom navigated in. old days, has never attained
to any importance. The long, narrow island, through which a chain of lofty
volcanoes runs, divides into a number of districts, in which independent political
constitutions could be developed.
Apart from slight traces of a population resembling the Negritos, Java was
originally inhabited by genuine Malays. No reliable early history of the island is
forthcoming, since the first records, which are still untrustworthy, date from the
Islamitic Age. We are thus compelled to have recourse to the accounts supplied
by other nations, and to the remains of buildings and inscriptions, which are still to
be found plentifully on the island. In any case, Java was the focus of the Archi-
pelago so far as civilization was concerned, and to some extent the political centre
also, and it has retained this position down to the present day. Our oldest infor-
mation about Java can be traced to the Indian traders, who had communication
with the island since, perhaps, the beginning of the Christian era. The fact that
the Indians turned special attention to Java, which was by no means the nearest
island of the Archipelago, must certainly be due to the existence there of rudimen-
tary political societies whose rulers protected the traders, and whose inhabitants
had already passed that primitive stage when man had no wants. The Indian
merchants by transplanting their culture to Java, and giving the princes an oppor-
tunity to increase their power and wealth through trade, had no small share in the
work of political consolidation. We must treat as a mythical incarnation of these
influences the Adyi Saka, who stands at the beginning of the native tradition, and
is said to have come to Java in 78 A. D. (for this reason the Javanese chronology
begins with this year) ; he gave them their culture and religion, organised their
constitution, made laws, and introduced writing. The Javanese legend mentions
the names of some of the kingdoms influenced by Hindu culture. Mendang
Kanmlan is said to have become important at the end of the sixth or beginning of
the seventh century; in 896 the dynasty of Jangala, and in 1158 that of Paja-
jaram (Pajadsiran), are said to have succeeded.
The first immigrants to Java were worshippers of Vishnu, who were followed
later by Buddhists ; this fact appears from the inscriptions and ruins, and is con-
firmed by the accounts of the Chinese Fa hien. The oldest traces of the Hindus
have been discovered in West Java, not far from the modern Batavia. There must
have been a kingdom in that part, between 400 and 500 A. D., whose monarch was
already favourable to the new culture and religion. It is possible that the first
Buddhists then appeared on the island and acquired influence. Important inscrip-
tions dating from the beginning of the seventh century tell us of a prince of West
Java, Aditya dharma, an enthusiastic Buddhist and ruler of a kingdom which
comprised parts of the neighbouring Sumatra ; he conquered a Javanese prince,
Siwaraga, whose name leads us to conclude that he was a supporter of the Brahman
doctrines, and built a magnificent palace in a part of Java which can no longer be
identified. It does not seem to have been any question of a religious war which
led to this conflict, but merely of a political feud. We learn from Chinese sources
that there was a kingdom of Java to which twenty-eight petty princes owed alle-
giance, and that in the year 674 a woman, Siina, was on the throne ; this kingdom,
556 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
whose capital lay originally farther to the east, embraced, presumably, the central
parts of the island, and was not therefore identical with that of Aditya dharma.
Buddhism, at all events, supported by a brisk immigration from India, increased
rapidly in power at this time, especially in the central parts of Java, while in
the east, and perhaps in the west also, Brahmauism held its own. In the eighth
and ninth centuries there were nourishing Buddhist kingdoms, whose power and
splendour may be conjectured from the magnificent architectural remains, above
all, the ruins of temples in the centre of the island, and from numerous inscriptions.
The fact that in the year 813 negro slaves from Zanzibar were sent by Java as a
present to the Chinese court shows the extent of Javanese commerce of that time.
If we may judge of the importance of the States by the remains of the temples,
the kingdom of Boro-Budur must have surpassed all others, until it fell, probably
at the close of the tenth century. After the first quarter of this century hardly
any more temples or inscriptions seem to have been erected in central Java, a
significant sign of the complete decay of the national forces. With this ended the
golden age of Buddhism.
At the same time the centre of gravity of political power shifted to the east of
the island. Inscriptions of the eleventh century tell of a king, Er-langa, whose
hereditary realm must have lain in the region of the present Surabaya ; by suc-
cessful campaigns he brought a large part of Java under his rule, and seems to
have stood at the zenith of his power in the year 1035. His purely Malay name
proves that the dynasty from which he sprung was of native origin. He was,
however, thoroughly imbued with Indian culture, as may be concluded from the
increase of Sanscrit inscriptions in East Java after the beginning of the eleventh
century. A Chinese account leads us to conjecture that about the same time a
kingdom existed in the west of Java which was at war with a State in southern
Sumatra.
The next centuries are somewhat obscure ; this may be connected with a cer-
tain decline in the trade and thus in the influence of the civilization of India,
but is principally due to the division and subdivision of Java into numerous petty
States. But in spite of this want of union the attempt of the Mongol monarch
Kublai (p. 177) to seize Java proved unsuccessful; only a part of the east was laid
waste. That side of the island contained among others the States of Pasuruan,
Kadiri, and Surabaya, the first of which gradually lost in importance. The States
in Central Java apparently sank into insignificance as compared with those of the
east ; this condition of things lasted until the intercourse with Nearer India once
more nourished, and the kingdoms of Solo and Semarang began in consequence to
revive.
This new Hinduistic age, in which Brahmanism again became prominent, had
however a stimulating influence on the east, where the kingdom of Modyopahit
(Majajiahit, Madchaput) rose to be a mighty power; in the west at that time
the kingdom of Pajajarani (p. 555) was the foremost power. Javanese records
give- the year 1221 (according to the Saka reckoning, 1144) as the date of the
founding of ftfodjopahit, or, more correctly, of the preceding kingdom of Tumapel,
and name as the first sovereign Ken A(ug)rok, who took as king the title llayasa,
and is said to have died in 1247 Saka (1169). The kingdom of Modyopahit in
tlu- narrower sense was not probably founded before 1278; the first king was
Indonesia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 557
Modyopahit is the best known of the earlier Javanese kingdoms, since it lasted
almost to the arrival of the Europeans, and an offshoot survived destruction by
Islam. A glance at the power of Modyopahit is therefore instructive, since it is
typical of the peculiar conditions of the Malay Archipelago and all the seafaring
population of the States on the coast or on the islands. Modyopahit never made
an attempt to subjugate completely the island of Java and change it into a united
nation, but it made its power felt 011 the coasts of the neighbouring islands, just as
Sweden for a time ruled the shores of the Baltic without annexing Norway, or as
England had long laid claim to the French coasts before Scotland was joined to the
British realm. We may allude, in passing, to the colonies of Ancient Greece, to
Carthage or Oman. In the west of Java a strong kingdom still stood, which for a,
time reduced Modyopahit to great straits. The advance of Modyopahit was natu-
rally only possible when a large fleet was available ; this is said to have destroyed,
in 1252, the Malay capital Singapore. The kingdom attained its greatest size
under the warlike king Ankawijaya, who mounted the throne in 1390, and is said
to have subjugated thirty-six petty States. It is certain that the kingdom had
possessions on Sumatra and settled Javanese colonists there, also that the south
coast of Borneo stood partially under its influence. It is probable that the Java-
nese, who, it can be proved, settled on the Moluccas, had also gained political
power there. The island of Bali in the east of Java formed an integral part of
Modyopahit. The kingdom seldom formed a united nation, but it exercised a
suzerainty over numerous petty States, which gladly seized every opportunity of
regaining independence. A great war between West and East Java, which had no
decisive results, broke out in the year 1403 and led to the interference of Chinese
troops (cf. p. 545).
In spite of all the brilliance of the Hindu States, the seeds of corruption had
been early sown in them. The immense prosperity of the Arabian people had cen-
turies before brought into the country Arab merchants, who ended in permanently
settling there, as the merchants of India had already done, and had won converts
for Islam in different parts of the Archipelago, chiefly among the Malays on Ma-
lacca, but also among the Chinese traders. " The Oriental merchant," says Conrad
Leemans, " is a man of quite different stamp from the European. While the latter
always endeavours to return to his home, the Oriental prolongs his stay, easily
becomes a permanent settler, takes a wife of the country, and has no difficulty in
deciding never to revisit his own land. He is assimilated to the native population,,
and brings into it parts of his language, religion, customs, and habits." It was
characteristic of the heroic age of Islam that the Arabian merchants had other aims
beyond winning rich profits from trade : they tried to obtain political dominion by
means of religious proselytism. Apparently the kingdom of Modyopahit, the bul-
wark of Hinduism, had early been fixed upon as the goal of their efforts.
The comparatively feeble resistance of the Buddhist and the Brahman doctrines
is partly explained by the fact that both were really comprehended by the higher
classes alone, while the people clung to outward forms only. A Chinese annalist
at the beginning of the fifteenth century calls the natives of Java downright devil-
worshippers (cf. p. 568) ; he does not therefore put them on a footing with the Bud-
dhists of China or Further India, so familiar to him. The first victory of Islam was
won in the Sumatran possessions of Modyopahit. The new doctrine found converts
among the nobles of the kingdom ; of these Arya Damar, the governor in Sumatra,.
558 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
and, above all, his son Raden Patah are mentioned. The improbable Javanese
account of the fall of Modyopahit only leads us to suppose that a revolt of the
nobles who had been won over to Islam, probably assisted by female intrigues,
cost the reigning monarch, Bromijoyo, his throne (1478). The Bralimanists who
remained loyal withdrew to the island of Bali, whence for a long time they com-
manded a part of the east coast of Java, and when that was no longer possible,
hindered at least the advance of Islam on Bali (cf. below, p. 568). The victory of
Islam in Modyopahit soon had its counterparts in the other States of the island.
Even in 1552 the ruler of Bantam sought to obtain the protection of the Portuguese
against the Mohammedans ; but it was too late. When two years afterward a
Portuguese fleet appeared, the important trading town was in the hands of the
Mohammedans. Since the conversions in the several districts of Java took place
at different times, and were mostly associated with disturbances, a number of petty
States soon arose, of which Pajang and Damak were the most powerful. On the
inland of Madura, whose destinies were always closely linked with those of Java,
there were three independent kingdoms.
Some one hundred years after the triumph of Islam the situation was altered.
The princes of Mataram had gradually attained greater and greater power, though
their country had originally been only a province of Pajang; in the end they
had subjugated most of the east and the centre of the island. In the west, on
the contrary, Bantam, now Islamitic, was still the predominant power. The Dutch,
after 1596, tried to negotiate an alliance with it, which could not permanently
prove advantageous to Bantam. The founding of Batavia and the interference of
the English soon led to hostile complications, but the attempt to expel the Dutch
once more from the island did not succeed. The Dutch Trading Company natu-
rally also came in conflict with the ambitious kingdom of Mataram. The " Susu-
hunan," or Sultan, Agong of Mataram, had formed a scheme to subdue the west of
Java, and had proposed an alliance to the Dutch ; but he found no response from
the cautious merchants, and consequently twice (in 1628 and 1629) made an
attempt to seize Batavia. After his death his son Ingologo (1645-1670) concluded
a treaty of peace and amity with the company (1646). Since the Dutch did not
for a time try to extend their possessions on Java, the peace was one of some
duration. Ingologo's successor, the sultan Amang Kurat, tirst invoked the help
of the Dutch against a Buginese freebooter who had settled in Surabaya. He was
expelled, and a rebellious prince, Trtina Jaya, also succumbed to the attack of
the Dutch fleet. The company in the treaty of Japara (1677) were well paid by
concessions of territory and trading facilities for the help which they had rendered.
But the complications were not yet ended. Truna Jaya once more drew the
sword against the apparently unpopular Amang Kurat, drove him out from his
capital, and selected Kadiri as the capital of the kingdom, which he had the inten-
tion of founding. But the decision rested with the Dutch, and they were resolved
to keep the old dynasty on the throne, for the good reason that the expelled prince
was forced to submit to quite different terms from those offered by his victorious
rival. They defeated the usurper and placed the son of Amang Kurat, who had
di*-d meanwhile, on the throne ; a small Dutch garrison was left in the capital to
protect him. In the year 1703 the death of the sultan gave rise to violent dis-
putes about the succession. Once more naturally (cf. the English policy in India,
pp. 467-493) Paku Buwouo, the candidate who with the help of the company sue-
indon^ia-] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 559
ceeded in establishing his claim to the throne, had to show his gratitude by sur-
renders and concessions of every kind (1705) ; the disputes, however, still lasted.
Henceforth the sultans of Mataram could only hold the sceptre and avert the fall
of their feudal sovereignty by the continuous support of the Dutch. Confusion
reached its height when, by the revolt of the Chinese in the year 1740, the power
of the company itself was shaken to its foundations. The reigning sultan as well
as the princes of Bantam and Cheribon encouraged the rebellion, though they
feigned devotion to the interests of the company ; the result was that the sultan
had to consent to fresh concessions after the defeat of the Chinese, and, what was
most important, renounced his sovereignty over the island of Madura. The king-
dom of Mataram, after the loss of the coast, became more and more an inland
State, and consequently was left helpless against the maritime power of the Dutch.
The seat of government was then removed to Solo (Surakarta).
But the greater the influence which the company acquired over Mataram, the
more it saw itself dragged into the endless rebellions and wars of succession which
had now become traditional in that kingdom. From 1749 to 1755 a war raged,
which was finally decided by a partition of the kingdom. The sultan Paku
Buwono III received the eastern part, with the capital Surakarta ; his rival, Mangku
Bumi, the western, with Jokjakarta as chief town ; while a third claimant was
granted some minor concessions (treaties of 1755 and 1758). Besides the two
States formed out of the ancient Mataram, there still remained in the west the
kingdoms of Bantam and Cheribon, both entirely subject to the company, which,
in fact, possessed the greater part of Java. Under the conditions thus established
the more important disputes were ended ; but the maladministration of the com-
pany, together with its oppression of the natives, produced their natural result in a
series of petty disturbances during which robbery and pillage were carried on with-
out a check. The final collapse of the company and the chequered fortunes of
the Netherlands in 1800 naturally increased the disorders on Java, and the reforms
which General Herman Willem Daendels finally carried out in the year 1808 came
too late. England took possession of the island in 1811 and held it till 1816. At
this time the remaining territories of Bantam and Cheribon were taken away, and
nothing was left to the two sultans beyond a pension and the empty title. Thus
only the susuhunan of Surakarta and the sultan of Jokjakarta were left as semi-
independent rulers ; but both, as a penalty for their resistance to the English, were
once more confined to their own territory, and watched by garrisons posted in their
chief towns.
With the second occupation of Java by the Dutch a new, but on the whole
hardly more prosperous, era opens for the island. The narrow-spirited monopolies
and trading restrictions of the old company were, it is true, not revived, or only in
a modified form ; and since the government devoted its attention to the widest
possible cultivation of useful plants, it not only enlarged its revenue, but promoted
the increase of the population and of the general welfare. But all the heavier did
the burden of the corvee weigh upon the natives. Insurrections were therefore
still very frequent ; one of them ended with the banishment of the discontented
ex-sultan of Bantam (1832). An earlier rebellion, which broke out in 1825 in
Jokjakarta, under the leadership of the illegitimate prince Dhigo Negoro, against
the governor-general Godard van der Capellen, had been still more dangerous. As
had happened in previous cases, the troops of the princes of Madura, who were
560 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
loyal to the Dutch, lent efficient aid in its suppression. Although this revolt
exposed many weak points in the administration of the Dutch Indies, it is only
>ine,e 1868 that radical changes have been made (cf. above, p. 554). The corvee
was virtually abolished in case of the natives and a more equitable system of gov-
ernment introduced. Java, on the whole, since the Dutch government turned
its attention successfully to the other islands of the Malay Archipelago, has no
longer been able entirely to maintain its position as head of the Indonesian
colonies.
(6) Sumatra. — Sumatra, which is far larger than Java, but of a similarly elon-
gated shape, rises in the interior into numerous uplands possessing a comparatively
cool climate ; the east coast is flatter and more accessible than the west coast, in
front of which lies a row of small islands. The political attitude of Sumatra has
been determined by its geographical position ; it has been connected on the one
hand with the Strait of Malacca, on the other, with Java. But ethnographically
it is a purely Malay country, the place probably from which the ancient migra-
tions to the west started. In the Battas (Bataks) of the interior a people has
been preserved which, although largely impregnated with the results of civilization,
has still retained a considerable share of its original peculiarities, and has resisted
the introduction of any religious teaching from without. Sumatra, as might be
expected from its position, probably came into contact with India and its culture
at a somewhat earlier period than Java, since the rich pepper-growing districts on
the Strait of Malacca were the first to create a systematic commerce. It is quite
in harmony with these conditions that the districts on the northern extremity, the
modern Acheh (Achin), were the earliest which showed traces of Hindu influ-
ence and, consequently, the beginnings of an organised national life ; thence this
influence spread farther to the inland region, where signs of it are to be found
even at the present day among the Battaks. The older kingdoms of the north-
ern extremity were Poli (according to the Chinese transliteration) and Sumatra
(according to Ibn Batuta, more correctly Samathra or Samuthra) ; the capital of
the latter, situated east of the modern Acheh, has given its name to the entire
island. In Java it was the culture and the religion of the Hindus which made
themselves chiefly felt, while the political power remained in the hands of the
natives ; in North Sumatra, on the contrary, the immigrants from India seem com-
pletely to have assumed the lead in the State, and to have created a feudal king-
dim quite in the Indian style. This kingdom, whose capital for many years was
I'.isir, held at times an extended sway and comprised a large part of the coasts of
Sumatra. While the Indian civilization thus struck root in the north, and the
political organisation of the kingdom of Menangkabau in the central districts was
probably also due to its influence, it began indirectly to affect the south, where,
,' according to Chinese accounts, a State had been formed as early as the fifth cen-
turv. Southern Sumatra by its geographical position has always been fated to be
in some degree dependent on the populous and powerful Java. In the earliest
Hindu period of Java we learn of a prince whose territory lay on both sides of
the Sunda Strait. It is possible that the inhabitants of Southern Sumatra en-
d greater independence afterward, since we have no detailed accounts of the
relations between the two islands, except Chinese accounts of wars between AVest
•lava and Southern Sumatra in the tenth century. In 1377 Southern Suma-
MM*] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 561
tra, whose ruler actually appealed to China for help, was conquered by the Java-
nese; for a time it belonged to Modyopahit. Palembang was then founded by
Javanese colonists ; it has been already related how Islam found its first adherents
there, and became a menace to the kingdom of Modyopahit.
In the north also Islam effected the overthrow of Hinduism. At the beginning
of the thirteenth century the first preachers of the new doctrine appeared in the
Strait of Malacca, and at first gained influence over the Malays, in the narrower
sense of the word, who came originally from Sumatra and ruled the Peninsula
•of Malacca and the islands lying off it. In Acheh (Achin) itself, on the other
hand, they won no success until the beginning of the sixteenth century, later, that
is, than in Eastern Java. At any rate, the political supremacy of the Hindus
seems already to have broken up, and to have given place to native dynasties.
Ali Moghayat Shah was, according to a credible tradition, the first Mohammedan
sultan of Acheh; Alo ed-din al-Kahar (1530-1552) seems to have completely
reorganised the political system ; he also conquered a Battak-Hindu kingdom,
which continued to resist the new doctrine in the north. In the succeeding period
Acheh blossomed out into a powerful State, and was naturally soon involved in the
wars which raged almost without intermission on the Strait of Malacca between
the Portuguese and the Malays. The fleets and armies of Acheh repeatedly ap-
peared off Malacca and made unsuccessful attempts to capture the town from the
Portuguese.
The Dutch, on entering upon the inheritance of the Portuguese, took over their
unfriendly relations with Acheh. At first everything seemed to go well; the
Dutch turned their attention more to Java and the Moluccas, and contented them-
selves with concluding a sort of commercial treaty with Acheh in the year 1602,
ttnd with obtaining the concession of a strip of territory for the establishment of
factories ; in the meantime, also, owing to internal disorders, the power of Acheh
had greatly waned. But the keener the interest felt in Sumatra, the clearer it
became that the originally despised Acheh was a formidable and almost invincible
antagonist. After the middle of the nineteenth century it became the most
dangerous piece on the chess-board of the Dutch colonial policy. A dynasty of
Arabian stock, whose first ruler, Mahmud Shah, mounted the throne in the year
1760, resolutely resumed the struggle with the Dutch. Acheh had, it is true, been
recognised as a sovereign State by the treaty of London on March 17, 1824; but
the fact was gradually made evident that a free Malay State, with its inevitable
encouragement or tolerance of piracy, could no longer be allowed to exist in so
dangerous a place as the Strait of Malacca. Finally, therefore, in the year 1870
Holland, in return for a promise to resign its possessions in West Africa, received
full permission to take any action it wished against Acheh. Negotiations with
the sultan led to no result. The war, which began on March 25, 1873, proved un-
expectedly difficult and costly, not merely from the obstinate resistance offered by
the population on various occasions, and particularly when on January 24, 1874, the
sultan's palace was stormed by the Dutch under Lieutenant-General J. van Swieten,
but, above all, on account of the unfavourable nature of the scene of operations and
the unhealthy climate. It was not until 1879 that the country could be considered
subjugated, but it still required an unusually large garrison, and as recently as the
year 1896 showed by a renewed insurrection on how uncertain a foundation the
Dutch rule in these parts is reared.
VOL. II —36
562 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter Y
The Dutch soon extended their influence from Java over the south of Sumatra,,
and also in Lampong, which paid tribute to the Javanese kingdom of Bantam.
The most important kingdom, Palembang, appears to have enjoyed a short period of
independence after the destruction of Modyopahit, but it was conquered by the
Geding Souro, who originally came from Demak in Java in the year 1544, and thus.
received a Javanese dynasty, which reigned until 1649 ; after that a new line occu-
pied the throne until 1824. A factory was set up in the vicinity of the town of
Palembang by the Dutch as early as 1618, and events then took their usual course.
After the natives in the year 1662 had attacked the factory and had massacred
almost the entire garrison, the town of Palembang was destroyed by a Dutch fleet,,
and a favourable commercial treaty was exacted from the intimidated sultan, which
remained in force until 1811. Palembang acquired new interest for the Dutch,
who meanwhile had been forced on one occasion to end a civil war by their inter-
ference, when in 1710 immensely rich tin mines were discovered on the island of
Banka, belonging to that kingdom ; the company immediately secured for itself a
share of the profits by a separate treaty. The usually friendly relations between
the Dutch and Palembang were immediately destroyed when, after the occupation
of Java by the English, the whole garrison of the Dutch factory at Palembang was
murdered by the sultan's order in a most horrible manner. The English under-
took a punitive expedition, but failed to restore order thoroughly ; nor were the
Dutch, after the restoration of their East Indian possessions (1816) more success-
ful, until in 1823 they summarily incorporated Palembang as a province into their
colonial empire.
Marco Polo mentions petty States on the west coast in his days. Among the
more modern kingdoms may be mentioned Benkulen (Bangkahulu), which was
subject to English influence after 1685 and was not ceded to Holland until August
13, 1814. The islands lying in front of the west coast, Mas especially, contain in
parts a population which has received little of the effects of foreign civilization, and
by its manners and customs recalls the old times of the roving Malay race.
(c) Borneo. — Borneo, the largest island of the Malay Archipelago, has not
hitherto in the course of history attained anything like the importance to which its
size should entitle it. A glance at the geographical features of this clumsily shaped
island, which is surrounded on almost every side by damp, unhealthy lowlands, will
satisfactorily account for this destiny ; indeed Borneo would have probably drawn
the notice of maritime nations to itself even less, had not its wealth in gold and
diamonds proved so irresistibly alluring. If the physical characteristics of the
huure island are unattractive to foreign visitants, they also inspire its inhabitants
with little disposition for seafaring, migrations, and commerce. The Dyaks, who
are the aborigines of Borneo, are mainly a genuine inland people, which in the
course of history has shown little mobility and has tenaciously preserved its ancient
customs.
There is no trace of political societies on a large scale in the interior of the
island ; the coasts alone, washed by the waves of foreign peoples, show the begin-
nings of national organisations, which from their position are far more influenced
by the other islands of the Archipelago and the chief routes of maritime trade than
by the land <»n which they are established. It would, for example, have been a less
adventurous journey for an inhabitant of the north coast to visit the ports of China,,
/«!««*.] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 563
than to penetrate a dozen miles into the interior of his own island, or even to
migrate as far as the south coast. Thus the old tradition, that originally the island
was divided into three large kingdoms (Borneo or Brunei, Sukadana, and Banjer-
massing), is untrustworthy in this form. The south coast of the island was influ-
enced in a remarkable degree by the vicinity of Java. We have not only the
remains of buildings and idols, but also literary evidence to prove that the Hindu
kingdoms of Java affected, both by conquest and by example, the adjoining parts of
Borneo. Modyopahit, in particular, received tribute from the kingdom of Banjer-
massing, and other States on the south coast ; even after the fall of the Brahman
State the Islamitic princes of Java kept up this relation for some time. The legends
of Borneo point in the same direction when they record that Banjermassing was
founded by Lembong Mangkurat, a native of Nearer India, who had immigrated
from Java.
At the time of the fall of Modyopahit Banjermassing was the most powerful
State in Borneo. It certainly owed its prominence to the advanced civilization
which, evoked by a large Javanese immigration, was naturally followed by the in-
troduction of Hindu creeds. According to the legend a son of the royal house of
Modyopahit founded in the fourteenth century a Hindu dynasty which reckoned
thirteen princes down to Pangeran Samatra, the first Islamitic ruler ; the daughter
of Pangeran Samatra was married to a Dyak, who became the founder of a new
dynasty. The circumstance that Banjermassing became tributary to the Islamitic
State of Demak on Java, while Sukadana and Landak, the other capitals of the
south coast, were subject to Bantam, equally Islamitic, favoured the introduction of
the Mohammedan faith, which first struck root in 1600. But all recollection of
Modyopahit was not lost ; most of the princely families of the south coast traced
their descent from its royal house.
The north, on the other hand, was considerably influenced in early times by
China ; even at the present day pieces of Chinese porcelain, which evidently reached
the island through ancient trading transactions, are highly valued by the Dyaks of
the interior. The earliest mentioned kingdoms in Borneo, Polo in the north and
Puni on the west coast, may have acquired power from the trade with China ; in
the fourteenth century certainly Puni also was subject to Javanese influence. In
addition to the Javanese the Malays, in the stricter sense of the word, exercised
great influence over Borneo, whose coasts in quite early times had become the
favourite goal of their voyages and settlements. It was through them that
Brunei, the chief State of the north coast, was founded, though the date cannot be
accurately fixed ; perhaps it was merely a continuation of the old kingdom of Polo.
Malay immigrants had probably come to Brunei, even before their conversion to
Islam, which took place in the middle of the thirteenth century. Modyopahit also
gained a temporary influence over Brunei. When, however, the first Europeans
visited the country, it was a powerful and completely independent kingdom, which
for a time extended its sway over the Sulu Islands and as far as the Philippines.
In the year 1577 the first war with the Spaniards broke out, and further collisions
followed later. Other Malay States on the west coast were Pontianak (probably the
ancient Puni), Matan, Mongama, and others. Banjermassing, Sukadana, and Lan-
dak were also originally founded by Malays, and only subsequently brought under
Javanese rule.
From the east the Bugi of Celebes sought new homes on the shores of Borneo,
564 HISTORY OF THE WORLD
and also founded a number of small kingdoms, whose existence depended originally
on trade and piracy. All these immigrations have naturally produced the result
that the coast population of Borneo is everywhere an inextricable tangle of the
most various racial elements, and that the aboriginal Dyaks have intermixed freely
with Malays, Javanese, Chinese, Bugi, and others. Which racial element predomi-
nates depends on various contingencies from time to time. In the mining districts
of the kingdom of Samba in Western Borneo Chinese, for example, were settled
after the second half of the eighteenth century in such large numbers that they
were far too strong for the Malay sultan, and were only suppressed by the Dutch
government in 1854.
The first Europeans who attempted to form connections with Borneo were the
Portuguese (after 1521) ; they met, however, with little success, although they
renewed their attempt in 1690. Meanwhile the Dutch East India Company
had opened, in the year 1606, a factory in Banjermassing, whose business was
to export pepper and gold-dust, but, owing to the vacillating and often hostile
attitude of the sultan, it was no more successful than the Portuguese settle-
ment, and was finally abandoned, in consequence of the murder of Dutch officials
and merchants at Banjermassing in 1638 and 1669. The residence of the sultan,
since Banjermassing had been destroyed by the Dutch in 1612, was removed to
Martapura, and remained there, although Banjermassing soon rose from its ashes.
In 1698 the English appeared upon the scene, and were at first successful, until
the destruction of their factory in the year 1707 thoroughly discouraged them
from further undertakings. The sultan of Banjermassing, in spite of his faithless
behaviour, was in no way inclined to abandon the advantages of the European
trade, but once more turned to the Dutch company. At length, in 1733, the com-
pany resolved on a new attempt. Since that date, notwithstanding frequent mis-
understandings, the relations of the Dutch with the island have been practically
unbroken. The interference of the company in a war about the succession to the
throne turned the scale and procured for it the sovereignty over Banjermassing ;
and thus the greater part of the south coast of Borneo, as well as the coveted
monopoly of the pepper trade, passed into its hands (1787). During the occupation
of Java by the English the reigning sultan consented to make further concessions,
which after January 1, 1817, benefited the Dutch. To this period belongs the
romantic attempt of an Englishman, William Hare, to found an independent
kingdom in South Borneo. The Dutch have considerably extended and con-
solidated their power by new treaties and by the wars which they fought from
1850 to 1854 on the west coast, and from 1859 to 1862 on the southeast coast. Baii-
jermassing itself, after the interference of the Dutch in the succession to the
throne in 1852 had caused a rebellion, was deprived of its dynasty in 1857 and
completely annexed in 1864. A fresh rebellion in 1882 did not alter the position of
afl'airs. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the sultanate of Brunei had lost
much of its power; when therefore, in the year 1839, an insurrection was raging in
the province of Sarawak, the governor gladly accepted the offer of Brooke, an
:>lmian, to come to his assistance. James Brooke, born on April 29, 1803, at
Handel, in Bengal, had then formed the plan of founding a colony in Borneo at his
private cost; he appeared in June, 1839, with his crew on the coast, and actually
conquered the opponents of the sultan, who in gratitude entrusted the governorship
trawak to him in 1840, and in 1 S42 formally invested him with the province.
/-,/«»«*,] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 565
Since Brooke was no ordinary adventurer, but a man of noble nature and strong
character, his administration proved a blessing to the disorganised country. When
the sultan showed signs of suspicion, the rajah relied upon England, and com-
pelled the sultan in the year 1846 to cede the island of Labuan to the British, and
finally, after he had suppressed various risings of the Malays and Chinese, made
himself absolutely independent of Brunei. Shortly before his death he offered
Sarawak to the English government. But the offer was refused, and after his
death (1868) the State of Sarawak passed to his nephew, Sir Charles Brooke.
Subsequently the English government reconsidered its former decision, and in
1888 both Brunei and Sarawak were received under British protection, on the
terms that internal administration should be left entirely in the hands of their
respective rulers, but that the foreign relations of both States should be controlled
by England. The declaration of this protectorate came as a natural sequel to the
acquisition of North Borneo (Sandakan). This province was granted to the British
North Borneo Company as its private property in the year 1881. It passed under
the protection of England at the same time and on the same terms as the States of
Brunei and Sarawak.
Celebes. — The fourth large island of the Archipelago, Celebes, is of quite
a different character from Borneo. Instead of the clumsy contour of Borneo, we
find here a most diversified coast line ; immense plains, such as we find in Borneo,
are wanting in Celebes, which is a laud of mountainous peninsulas separated by
deeply indented gulfs. If the island has not attracted commerce to its shores to
the extent which might be expected from these favourable natural conditions, the
reason, doubtless, is, that attention has been diverted from it by the proximity of
the spice-bearing Moluccas. Celebes, although fertile and not actually poor in ore
and precious metals, and for that reason a valuable possession at the present day,
does not contain those tempting products which hold out to the merchant the
prospect of rapid and splendid profits. But although the accessibility of the island
has not been thoroughly appreciated by foreigners, it has exercised great influence
on the fortunes of the native population, — it has sent them to the sea, and turned
them into wandering pirates, traders, and settlers. Celebes has thus acquired for
the eastern Malay Archipelago a significance similar to that of Malacca for the
western. Celebes was not regarded by the old inhabitants of the Archipelago as a
single united country. The northern peninsula with its aboriginal population of
Alfur tribes had nothing in common with the southern parts, which were inhab-
ited by the Macassars and Bugi ; and even the Dutch have recognised this differ-
ence so far as to place the two districts under different Eesidencies (Macassar or
Mangkassar and Menado). Celebes, on the whole, is a genuine Malay country,
although there are many indications among the Alfurs that there was an admixture
of dark-skinned men ; but whether we must think of these latter as stunted
negrito-like aborigines or as immigrant Papuans, is an insoluble problem for the
time being. The Bugi and Macassars are pure Malays, who in their whole life and
being probably most resemble those bold navigators of Malay race who have
peopled Polynesia and Madagascar.
In view of the fact that the bulk of the population is still divided up into
numerous small tribes, which show little inclination to amalgamate, we cannot
venture to assign an early date for the rise of large kingdoms in Celebes. Tradi-
566 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter V
tion in the south can still tell how the shrines of separate localities, from which
emigrants went to other parts of the island, first acted as a rallying point for
small tribes, or hindered the disintegration of others which were increasing in
numbers and extent of territory ; the chiefs of the several localities recognised the
possessor of the most ancient and most potent magic charm as their superior lord,
assembled from time to time at council meetings in his village, and thus prepared
the way for the erection of larger political communities. This process probably
was carried out in Celebes with comparatively little interruption and without the
help of foreigners ; even of Hinduism only faint traces can have reached the island,
as is shown, among other instances, from the absence of Sanscrit words in the
original dialects of the Bugi. The small tribes were engaged in constant feuds
among themselves before any States were formed, and after that epoch these wars
were continued on a larger scale, and alternated with sanguinary conflicts within
the still incompletely organised kingdoms. The annals of Macassar relate, for
example, as a noteworthy fact that one of these princes died a natural death. The
foremost power among the Macassars was Goa, later Macassar ; among the Bugi,
on the contrary, Boni. From this place the Bugi gradually spread far over the
coasts of the eastern Malay islands and to some extent founded new States.
The Portuguese opened communications with Celebes in the year 1512. The
kingdoms into which the island was then divided could hardly have been long
established ; for even if the annals of the Macassars enumerate thirty-nine princes,
who occupied the throne in succession down to the year 1809, the average dura-
tion of a reign during those early days of barbarism and bloodshed must have
been short. Assuming, therefore, that the records are fairly trustworthy, the State
of Macassar may have been founded subsequently to the year 1400. The Portu-
guese first tried to secure a footing on the island in 1540, when they set up a fac-
tory in Menado, and later also in the south ; they obtained, however, no better
results than the English and Danes at a somewhat later period. The Dutch, who
had turned their attention to Celebes after 1607, alone met with ultimate success.
But meanwhile Islam had reached the island ; in 1603 the prince of Macassar with
his people adopted the new faith. The great ideas of this world-religion were
here, as in so many other places, a stimulus to the prosperity of the country, so
that the influence of the kingdom of Macassar made vast strides in the next few
years, until its supremacy in Southern Celebes was indisputable. It was engaged
in repeated wars with Boni, the State of the Bugi, since the people of that demo-
cratically organised kingdom refused to accept Islam, and resisted the new creed,
first with their prince at their head, and then, when he was converted to the
Mahommedan faith, in opposition to him. The sultan of Macassar interfered in
these quarrels, and succeeded in the year 1640 in subduing Boni. The same fate
was shared by numerous petty States. Macassar with its naval power partially
conquered the coasts of Sumbawa and Buton (Butung) ; but it was destined soon to
discover that the age of large native States was past.
The destruction of a Dutch factory on Buton compelled the East India Com-
pany to take active measures ; in doing so it relied on the conquered, but still
disaffected, Boni, whose royal family had found a friendly reception as fugitives
among the Dutch. The sultan of Macassar was soon compelled to abandon his
conquests, and resign the throne of Boni to Bajah Palaka, a ///v;%<: of the Dutch,
fruni the year 1672 onward raised Boni to be the ruling power in South
i^ia] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 567
•Celebes. After his death (1696) a part of his kingdom became the absolute pos-
session of the company. Although the Dutch always took full advantage of the
inveterate hatred between Macassar and Boni, yet their attempts to extend their
rule still farther led to repeated and troublesome wars, until the temporary English
occupation of the island (1814-1816) and the ensuing disorders resulted in
drastic modifications of the political situation. A war with the princes of South
Celebes ended in 1825 with the victory of the Dutch. The independence of the
native States would then have ended for ever, had not the rebellion in Java diverted
attention to another direction. It was only after new struggles in 1856 and 1859
that their annexation to the colonial empire of the Dutch East Indies was effected.
The history of North Celebes really belongs to that of the Moluccan archi-
pelago. The State of Menado may be noticed as an important political entity.
When the northern peninsula, and especially the hilly district of Minahassa, had
proved to be suitable for coffee plantations, European influence easily became pre-
dominant there, and all the more so since Islam had not yet won a footing.
Elsewhere in the Dutch East Indies there have been few or no conversions to
Christianity ; but a part of the inhabitants of Minahassa have been converted.
The eastern and smallest peninsula of Celebes has also in its external life been
•subject to the influence of the Moluccas.
(e) The Moluccas. — The modern history of the Malay Archipelago centres in
the west round Java, but in the east round the Molucca Islands. In the earlier period,
when the trade in muscat nuts and cloves had not yet attracted foreign shipping
to its shores, the group of the Moluccas may have been less conspicuous ; small
tribes and village communities probably fought against each other, and may have
extended their warlike expeditions and raids to Celebes and New Guinea, and these
visits were probably returned in kind. The flourishing trade in spices then raised
the wealth and power of certain places to such a pitch that they were able to
bring under their dominion large portions of the Archipelago. Jilolo, on the north-
ernmost peninsula of Halmahera, is considered to be the oldest kingdom ; in 1540
it was absorbed by Teruate. It is a remarkable fact that the influence of China
on the Moluccas seems to have been very slight, since the islands are hardly men-
tioned in the Chinese annals before the fifteenth century.
The Portuguese on their arrival found two large kingdoms, Ternate and
Tidor ; both originally rose in small insular districts, their chief towns lay in
close proximity, and as hostile rivals each was bent on eclipsing the other. The
population of these two States was even then, probably, much mixed ; in addition
to the presumably oldest population, the Alfurs, who on Halmahera especially and
Seram had preserved a large share of their independence, there were on the coasts
Malays, Bugi, and the descendants of other nations occupied in the spice trade,
namely, the Javanese, who seem at first to have been almost exclusively occupied
in transporting spices to their native island, and the Arabs, probably also the Chi-
nese and the Hindus. About Ternate we know that the seventh ruler mounted
the throne in the year 1322 ; in his time Javanese and Arabs are said to have
immigrated in exceptional numbers. Ternate and Tidor were maritime and insu-
lar States; they kept closely to the coast, and while their fleets were powerful
they never possessed extensive territory on Halmahera and Seram. Since their
power was entirely based on the spice trade, the princes of the two States courted
508 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
the favour of the Portuguese, who indeed first appeared as traders. When Ternate
proved successful in this respect, the monarch of Tidor threw himself into the arms
of the Spaniards, who then came forward with their claims on the Moluccas. The
outrages of the Portuguese led to many rebellious and conflicts.
The Dutch first appeared on the scene in the year 1599, and planted a small
settlement on Banda ; another half-century, however, elapsed before they felt them-
selves strong enough to seize the monopoly of spice-growing and the spice trade.
The sultanates of Ternate and Tidor, which had some power over the coast dis-
tricts of Celebes and New Guinea, were allowed to remain, but the Spice Islands
proper, Amboina (after 1605) and Banda especially, were placed under Dutch
administration. As it seemed impracticable to watch over all the islands, the
company determined to allow the cultivation of cloves and muscat nuts only
in certain places, and everywhere else to effect a complete destruction of the
spice-trees. The execution of this purpose necessitated a war, which in 1621
almost annihilated the population of the Banda Islands, so that henceforth the
company was able to introduce slaves, and thus exercise a stricter supervision.
But since the seeds of the spice-trees were continually being carried by birds to
other islands, annual " Hongie expeditions " were undertaken in order to destroy
the young plantations on prohibited soil, by force of arms if necessary, and unspeak-
able misery was in this way spread over the islands. These sad conditions, whose
prime mover was the governor, Arnold de Ylamiug, lasted down to the English
occupation (1810 ; p. 475), and were afterward renewed, though in a modified
form. In 1824 the Hongie expeditions were discontinued, but the last traces of
the spice monopoly only disappeared in 1873, when the plantations were sold to
private speculators. During the time when the small spice islands had so chequered
a history, the main islands long remained neglected. The Dutch gradually suc-
ceeded in acquiring influence over the semi-civilized Alf urs, of whom those who
live on Seram are organised in peculiar secret societies, which originated in the
peculiar system of male associations to which we have already referred.
(/) The Small Sunda Islands. — Of all the districts of the Malay Archipelago,
the " small " Sunda Islands play the least conspicuous part in history. Devoid of
any political unity, they stagnated in their isolation until foreign immigration
introduced a higher type of social life, and small kingdoms sprung into existence
here and there along their coasts. The interior of the islands remained unsubdued
and unaffected by this change.
Bali affords a solitary exception to the general rule. This island, although
profoundly influenced in ancient times by Java, frequently enjoyed political
independence. When the Brahman States of East Java increased in strength
toward the close of the first millennium of the Christian era, Bali also was a State
with Hindu culture (see the accompanying plate, "Two Illustrations of Hindu
Mythology," etc.). Ugrasena ruled there in the year 923 ; in 1103 another prince,
.layapangu, is mentioned. Bali later formed a part of the kingdom of Modyopahit.
It was impossible for Islam to convert the Balinese, who, at the time when
they formed a united people, actually assumed the aggressive, oppressed the
M«'hammedan Sassaks on the temporarily conquered Lombok, and menaced Sum-
bawa. Brahmanism defied its rival in this case at least, and has lasted on Bali
down to the present day. In consequence of the prevailing system of small
/«,/,„«*,] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 569
sovereigns complete political disintegration gradually set in; there were eight
petty States in Bali in the nineteenth century, when the Dutch in the years 1846,
1848, 1849, and 1868 undertook campaigns against Balinese princes. Nevertheless
the Dutch, even recently, have required a comparatively strong levy of troops to
crush the resistance of one of the princes.
Javanese influence also temporarily touched Sumbawa, the development of
which on the whole was affected by the seafaring inhabitants of Southern Celebes,
the Macassars and Bugis. It was formerly split up into six small and independent
States, Bima, Sumbawa, Dompo, Tambora, Sangar, and P(ap)ekat. The population
of the " kingdoms " of Tambora and Papekat suffered terribly under the devastating
eruption of Tambora (April 10, 1815), as, to a somewhat less degree, did those of
Saugar, Dompo, and the town of Sumbawa. In the east of Eloris (Flores ; capital,
Larantuka) Malay and Buginese immigrants predominated; the west, Mangerai,
was dependent on Bima, one of the States on Sumbawa and connected with it by
a common language. Timor may have been mostly influenced by the Moluccas,
and saw small principalities formed on its coast at a comparatively early date ;
these principalities had mostly disappeared by 1600 in consequence of the advance
of Timorese, in the stricter sense of the word, who inhabited the east of the island
and originally perhaps had their homes in Seram. The most northeasterly part of
Timor (Deli or Dilhi) is the last remnant of the Portuguese possessions in Indo-
nesia ; in the southwest (Kupang) the Dutch have had a footing since 1688 (with
exception of the years of the English conquest, 1811-1816).
(g) The Ph ilippines. — The large group of the Philippines, which in a geological
as well as ethnological sense represents the link connecting Indonesia to the region
of Eastern Asia, forms the northeastern portion of the Malay world of islands.
Malayism is always predominant in the Philippines ; it may indeed have prevailed
in Formosa also, and from thence have made further conquests. The Philippines
were not always in the possession of the Malays. In the earliest historical age
we find the islands inhabited by the Negritos, who were only gradually driven
back to the mountains of the interior by the immigrating brown race ; it was only
on the north shores of Luzon that they kept their position on the seacoast. There
were probably two invasions of Malays ; the tribes of the first intermixed very
largely with Negritos and on the second immigration shared their destiny, since
they too were forced to retreat to the mountainous interior of the islands, while
the new-comers occupied the coasts. The second wave of immigration, like the
first, chiefly flooded the south of the Archipelago, and ethnically changed it, while
the Negritos on the coast in the northeast of Luzon once more escaped extermi-
nation. The Malays of the second migration brought to the Philippines an
advanced civilization which shows traces of the influence of India; this event
may have occurred, therefore, some centuries after the Christian era. Many,
though not absolutely convincing, arguments support the view that the second
immigrants came from Sumatra, the cradle of the Malay race ; other features of
resemblance point to the Dyaks of Borneo. The Tagals on the peninsula of Luzon
became the representatives of the native semi-civilization.
A third immigration, which, however, was not so thoroughly carried out, is
connected with the advance of Islam into the Malay island-world. The Malays of
Brunei in Borneo undertook expeditions of conquest and conversion to the Philip-
570 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter V
pines about 1500. They subdued Palawan and firmly established themselves on
Luzon. Almost simultaneously immigrants from the Moluccas settled on Min-
danao and seized the Sulu (Jolo) Islands. A Mohammedan pirate State arose
there, while previously, as we learn from Chinese records of 1417, the group of
islands was divided into three kingdoms.
The Philippines were reached on March 16, 1521, from the east by the Portu-
guese, Magalhaes, who was in the Spanish service, and were called St. Lazarus
Isles ; later the name Islas de Poniente was given them ; the name of Philippines
was not adopted until 1565. The islands excited little attention at first, while
an obstinate struggle developed between the Spaniards and the Portuguese for
the possession of the Moluccas. When Charles V abandoned the Moluccas on
April 22, 1529, the Philippines also would probably have fallen into the hands of
the Portuguese if private Spaniards had not set foot on them, and if Portugal had
not attached slight importance to their possession. It was not until 1543 that a
Spanish fleet appeared once more in the Archipelago with the commission to found a
Spanish settlement. But this finally fell into the hands of the Portuguese, who
theoretically still asserted their claims to the Philippines. A renewed attempt in
the year 1565 met at last with success; the Spaniards established themselves first
on Sebu, then on Panay. In 1570 they turned to Luzon, and founded in the ensu-
ing year the town of Manila.
The Spaniards, after Portugal had been united to their kingdom in 1580, found
two other rivals who endangered their existence, — the Mohammedans or Moros,
advancing from the south, and the Chinese, who were largely represented, espe-
cially on Luzon. These latter had long maintained commercial intercourse with
the Philippines, and seem sometimes also to have won political influence. They
constituted a perpetual menace to the Spanish rule, but required nevertheless to be
treated cautiously, since the revenues of the colonies depended almost wholly on
the trade with China. In the year 1603 a terrible revolt of the Chinese broke out.
It was quelled with great slaughter of the insurgents by the Spaniards with help
of the natives and the Japanese, who were also resident on Luzon for trading pur-
poses. A few years later, however, the number of Chinese settlers in Manila had
once more risen to an alarming height. A new revolt was suppressed in 1639, and
when in 1662 the Chinese freebooter, Cheng Ko chuang (Koy sung, p. 106), whose
father, Cheng Cheng kung (" Koxinga ''), had conquered Formosa, threatened the
Philippines, there was once more a massacre, which, however, proved ineffective to
exclude entirely the undesirable guests.
The Spaniards met with more success in their struggle against Islam. Christi-
anity, thanks to the active zeal of the Spanish monks, completely outstripped it
on Luzon, while on Mindanao and the other southern islands the progress of the
Mohammedan teaching was at least checked. The task of ruling the natives was
facilitated through the circumstance that no large kingdoms appear to have existed
on the Philippines before the conquest. The Spanish government was most anx-
iously concerned to obtain the complete monopoly of the trade of the Philippines.
Commerce was only permitted with the American colonies of Spain. A port was
founded at Acapulco for the purpose of this trade, and once a year a great galleon
sailed thither from the Philippines, bearing goods from China, Japan, and India,
and the spices of the Philippines. The price of this cargo was usually paid in
silver dollars. A definite maximum in goods and money was fixed, which might
Indonesia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 571
not be exceeded. Direct trade with Europe was prohibited, notwithstanding fre-
quent attempts of the merchants of Seville. The richly laden vessels, which were
engaged in the commerce with America, naturally tempted all the pirates and
admirals of unfriendly nations, and were not unfrequently plundered, as, for
example, by George Anson on the coast of the island of Samar (1743). After
1785 the trade lay in the hands of the Real Compafiia de Filipinas. The harbour
of Manila was first opened to all maritime nations in 1803, in 1814 free trade was
introduced, and in 1834 the company was dissolved. But even then foreign com-
petition was checked as much as possible by all kinds of vexatious customs duties ;
the ruinous tobacco monopoly was not done away with until 1882.
Although these ridiculous restrictions on trade and the ascendancy of the cler-
ical party hindered all progress, still the Philippines during the union of Portugal
with Spain (1580-1640) formed the centre of a splendid colonial empire; but
through the competition of the Netherlands, Spain was soon restricted to the Phil-
ippines proper, which now for a long time were anything but prosperous. Neverthe-
less the spread of Christianity among the natives helped to consolidate the colony.
When an English fleet appeared off Manila in the year 1763, and the Chinese and
Indians rose against the Spaniards, the latter received the help of the Christian
native population. These allies could not save Manila from falling for the
moment into the hands of the English, but the Treaty of Paris restored to the
Spaniards all that had been conquered from them in the Philippines, and left their
power unchallenged, except by such rebellions as the tyranny of the monastic and
mendicant orders produced among the native races, and by the more formidable
discontent of the Malayo-Spanish half-castes, who had received a tinge of Euro-
pean culture, but felt themselves slighted and were eager to play a leading part.
Unrest showed itself in 1824. The mutiny of the troops in 1872 might have been
most dangerous had it not been smothered by prompt action. The political power
of Spain seemed on the whole to have been consolidated in the course of the nine-
teenth century ; and Spain gradually succeeded in annexing to her sovereignty a
part, at least, of the hitherto independent districts, such as Southern Mindanao
and the Sulu Islands.
But that ineradicable tradition of treating the colonies as sources of profit
for place-hunters and ecclesiastical orders prevented any real prosperity ; it was
equally impossible to treat the Tagals for all time as the Indians of Paraguay had
been treated at the time of the Jesuit supremacy. The thought of freedom
gradually gained ground ; secret societies, resembling freemasonry, formed the
rallying-point of discontented Filipinos, whose hatred was chiefly directed
against the priestcraft. Minor insurrections in 1876 and 1882 were followed by
a great rising in 1896, showing the power of these secret tendencies. The
successes of Japan in Eastern Asia seem to have also roused the self-conscious-
ness of the more enlightened natives, since, with some right, they regarded them-
selves as kinsmen of the Japanese. Once it seemed that the Spaniards, who made
themselves hated and despised by shooting the patriotic poet, Dr. Jos£ Eizal
(December 29, 1896), had succeeded by great sacrifices in effecting a peace with
the Tagals under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo (peace of December 14, 1897).
But the war with the United States of America had scarcely broken out when the
insurrection again blazed up. Since, however, the victorious United States did
not show themselves inclined to recognise the independence of the " Philippine
572 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter v
Republic" of June 23, 1898, they were obliged after the beginning of 1899 (Febru-
uary 5 and 17, futile attacks of the Filipinos on Manila) to take on themselves
the war with the natives, in which the American Major-Generals Elwell Stephen
Otis (until May 5, 1900), and Arthur MacArthur experienced many reverses.
Even after the capture of Aguinaldo (March, 1901) the Tagals, in their love of
liberty, under their subsequent dictator, San Dico, did not abandon the struggle,
especially on Samar.
3. MADAGASCAR
FAR away from Indonesia lies another country of the Malay race, Madagascar.
This island has had a less glorious history than the chief districts of Indonesia, a
fact largely due to its outlying position and the few attractions which it offers to
the enterprising merchant. Before the circumnavigation of Africa by the Portu-
guese, Madagascar lay off the great trade route which connected Western and
Eastern Asia, and only the vessels which carried the product of the gold mines
from Sofala to the north directed the notice of the Arabs to the coasts of the vast
island, and conveyed indirectly news of it to the civilized countries of Asia and
Europe. It is probable that the island of Menuthios, mentioned by Ptolemy, is
identical with Madagascar. But all historical accounts in the stricter sense are up
to the present so vague, that we could say little about the early history of the
peoples of Madagascar, did not ethnographical research, aided by comparative
philology and anthropology, allow us some insight into remote periods.
A. THE PRIMITIVE HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR
THE fauna and flora of Madagascar are remarkable from the circumstance that
they have their nearest counterpart, not in the neighbouring continent of Africa,
but in Malacca and Indonesia, possibly because the island represents the remains
of an old continent (" Lemuria "), which once partially filled up the Indian Ocean.
If we see then that a large part, if not the whole, of the earlier population of Mada-
gascar traces its origin from the Malay island-region, as language, customs, and
physique undoubtedly prove, we are tempted to think of the submerged Lemuria and
to place the immigration of Melanesian and Malayan peoples into Madagascar in
the very earliest prehistoric age. This supposition, in view of the remote antiquity
of the human race, should not be simply rejected ; if, nevertheless, it is generally
denied, and the affinity of the population of Madagascar to that of Indonesia is
regarded as an incidental counterpart to the geographical conditions of animal and
plant life, the cause of this is found in the assumption that the Malay immigrants
brought with them to Madagascar a comparatively developed civilization, such as
was only acquired by the Malays of Indonesia in the course of history. Recently,
however, Alfred Grandidier has adduced weighty reasons for the view that the
dark-skinned inhabitants of Madagascar came originally from Melanesia, or were
at any rate much more closely related to the Melanesians than to the negroes, and
that Malays also found their way to Madagascar at a very early period. Grandi-
dier relies on the fact that all the inhabitants, the light-complexioned as well as
those of a negro type, belong linguistically to the Malay family of nations.
m^a] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 573
It is difficult to determine whether the remnants of an undersized population
which are said to be found in the interior of the island are related to the Veddas
in Ceylon (p. 495) and the forest tribes of Malacca, and have occupied their
present home since primitive times, but it is not improbable. They might be,
then, the descendants of the oldest people of Lemuria, or, since Africa also pos-
sesses its dwarf tribes, of some primitive and widely dispersed race. The half-
mythical Wasimba in the highlands of the interior and the Kimos in the south
of Madagascar, who have been visited by several French travellers, are supposed
to be remains of such tribes.
The Malays were clearly brought to Madagascar by more than one of those
marvellous migrations which have become of paramount importance for the history
of Indonesia and Oceania. Certain similarities favour the view that Sumatra was
the point from which the colonisation of Madagascar started. The date of the
most important immigrations cannot be satisfactorily determined, but might be
put anterior to the beginning of Hindu influence in Indonesia, since Sanscrit
words are almost entirely absent in the languages of Madagascar. On the other
hand, considering the comparatively high culture of the immigrants, we should not
venture to place the beginning of the migration in a very remote age. The immi-
grants brought with them the art of iron-working, but do not seem to have been
acquainted with cattle-breeding, since the Hova word for ox is borrowed from the
East African Swahili language. They were not unfamiliar with the loom, but
apparently employed it to weave palm fibre, not cotton. Their social divisions
were hereditary nobles (Andrianes), free men, and slaves.
Since on the arrival of the Europeans the Mascarenes (cf. p. 578) which lie to
the east of Madagascar were found uninhabited, these migrations could not have
flowed over these fertile and attractive islands, but must have reached Madagascar by
another route. It is possible that the seafaring Malays, who by piracy and trade
commanded the shores of the Indian Ocean before the Christian era and until the
beginning of the Hindu trading expeditions to Malacca and Java, may have
reached the coasts of Madagascar in this way from the north, and founded settle-
ments there in course of time. While other Malay settlements, of which there
were many probably on the coast of the Indian Ocean, disappeared again later,
since their inhabitants were either massacred, or fused with the aborigines, the
Malay race found in the sparsely peopled Madagascar the possibility of an undis-
turbed expansion and of a gradual occupation of the greater portion of the island.
All connection with their Indonesian home was then abandoned, and the settlers
on Madagascar continued to develop independently of the mother country, but not
without experiencing in a considerable degree the influence of Africa. Among the
Hovas, who must be regarded as the latest immigrants, the legend is still current
that their forefathers came from a distant island on a marvellous road of lotus
leaves to the coasts of Madagascar, and that then, to escape the malarial fever,
they penetrated far into the hill country. The legend says nothing of any
aboriginal inhabitants.
The most pure-blooded Malays are the Hovas, who live in the central province
of Imerina, and number at present a million souls. The Betsileo, some 1,200,000
strong, who inhabit the hill country south of Imerina, seem to be more contami-
nated by negro blood. The Betsimisaraka on the east coast are more nearly allied
to the negroes than to the Malays. Besides the light-complexioned races of
574 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter v
Madagascar and the remnants of an undersized primitive people there are also,
especially on the coasts and in the south, dark inhabitants of a negro type,
although at present no hard and fast line can be drawn between the races.
There are no longer any economic contrasts in Madagascar which might give a
clue to earlier conditions. In every place where conditions are favourable rice-
growing supplies the staple food, cattle-breeding comes next; even the Masca-
renes are almost exclusively supplied with meat from Madagascar. Pigs are only
bred by the Hovas, while the coast tribes, in consequence, doubtless, of Arabian
influence, hold all swine in abhorrence. The Hova pig may have been introduced
from Indonesia.
Curiously enough the questions, whence the Nigritian inhabitants have come,
and how we are to picture to ourselves their immigration, have provoked an almost
more lively controversy than the question of the origin of the Malay nations,
although the close proximity of Africa seems at any rate to supply a satisfactory
answer to the first. Nevertheless, such authorities on Madagascar as James Sibree
and Grandidier prefer to consider the dark inhabitants of the island as a race
related to the Papuans rather than as true negroes. Even if we provisionally reject
this view and admit the negro nature of the dark Malagasies, still the other ques-
tion, whether the negroes came into the island earlier or later than the Malays, is
harder to decide. The Nigritian portion of the Malagasy population speak Malay
dialects, and must have been long subject to a distinct Malay influence. The main
body of the dark population, whose most important branch are the Sakalavas,
inhabit the west coast of the island opposite Africa. The Africans of the main-
land are inferior seamen and would, now at least, be unable to reach Madagascar
unaided. These facts perhaps support the view that negroes only came to the
island after the Malay immigration by the aid, or perhaps at the instigation, of the
Malays themselves. The race of the Nigritian Malagasies was perhaps carried off
from the East African coast by slave raids ; perhaps the Malays enlisted black troops
during their inter-tribal feuds, or possibly both these causes have co-operated to
produce the existing state of affairs. It is conceivable, also, that coast tribes of East
Africa, after the example of the Malays or led by Malay adventurers, may have
acquired greater skill in navigation and finally settled on Madagascar. The Saka-
lavas long enjoyed notoriety as audacious pirates. The Nigritian population has
been increased down to most recent times by the importation of African slaves.
B. THE AUTHENTICATED HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR
(a) The Arabian Period. — The people of the Arabs, which was destined to
effect such great revolutions in the Malay Archipelago, made its influence felt on
the coasts of Madagascar at a comparatively early period, possibly long before the
growth of Islam, and evidently owing to the vicinity of the gold mines of Sofala.
A dear knowledge of the existence of the islands was especially possessed by
K'lrisi (1153), one of the Arabian geographers, who alludes to it by the name
Chezbezat ; other Arabian writers call it Sereudah, or El Komr. The name Mada-
r i-; first mentioned by Marco Polo, who derived exact information about the
i-land from the Arabian navigators, and heard in this connection of a gigantic bird,
the roc. Tin- fabulously exaggerated account may refer to those gigantic ostrich-
like birds (sEjii/i>/-iu'* ma.>-imu$ and ^Epyornis inyens) which clearly inhabited
Indonesia
] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 575
Madagascar down to historical times. The oldest Arab settlements of which we
have accounts lay on the island Nossi Braha (Sainte Marie) on the northeast coast
of Madagascar and on the east coast itself ; probably the colonies also in the north-
west of the island were formed at a quite early period. In view of the traditional
history of Solomon, it is very remarkable that various quite noteworthy pieces of
evidence argue an early immigration of Jews. The religious controversies after
Mahomet led to further Arabian immigrations, principally of sectaries, such as
the Zeidites, a branch of the Alides, who may have partly come to Madagascar at
the close of the eighth century ; also about the same time a number of Ismaelites
immigrated. We know in any case that the Sunnite and Shiite Persians emi-
grated to East Africa. Grandidier maintains that descendants of all these immi-
grants can still be identified in Madagascar. The Arabs did not fail to influence
the adjoining settlements ; families of chieftains of Arabian blood were often at
the head of native communities, although it cannot be said that Islam for that
reason made appreciable progress.
The Portuguese, after the circumnavigation of South Africa, reached Madagas-
car also. The first of them to do so was Fernando Soarez, on February 1, 1506,
St. Laurence's day, from which circumstance the island received the name of San
Lourengo. It was repeatedly visited by Portuguese afterward, but no permanent
settlements were founded. The Dutch also soon abandoned their attempts at colo-
nisation, which were made in the years 1595-1598.
(b) Political Organisation. — At the earliest time of which some fairly credible
accounts have come down to us, the dark-skinned Sakalavas on the west coast
were the most powerful people of Madagascar, while the greater part of the island
was inhabited by independent tribes. At the end of the sixteenth century, as an
indirect consequence of Arabian influence, the great Sakalavan kingdom of Menabe
arose, which, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, planted
many offshoots, especially Iboina. The real founder of the power of Menabe was
Andriandahifotch, who died in 1680.
These conditions were first changed by the appearance of the Hovas, a genuine
Malay people, in the heart of the island. The Hovas, whose homes lay, in his-
torical times, in the central hill country, especially the province of Imerina,
immigrated, as their own tradition relates, into their country from the east coast
many ages before. A historical work, which appeared in 1873, gives a list of
thirty-six kings who have filled the throne since. According to this, Sibree places
the immigration into the highlands in the second half of the eleventh century.
After all, the list of kings can only refer to a fragment of the people, since the
Hovas in their new home soon split up into numerous small and independent
tribes, some of which even paid tribute to the Sakalavas. Grandidier, in contrast
to Sibree, assumes a very late immigration of the Hovas, or, more correctly, the
Andrianas (feudal lords), in Imerina. The Hovas in the narrower sense, the free
agricultural people of Imerina, are according to his view descendants of the old
Indonesian colonists, while the Andrianas, who are Javanese or at least genuine
Malays, are supposed not to have reached Madagascar until the middle of the six-
teenth century, that is to say, after the time of the Portuguese voyages of discovery.
The prosperity of the Hovas would thus be due to the stimulus given by these
comparatively civilized invaders. In 1780 there still existed in Imerina various
independent kingdoms, of which the most powerful was Tananarivo.
570 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [cv«/y^r v
The eighteenth century saw the completion of the national union of the Hovas,
who gradually realised their own strength and became a menace to the surrounding
tribes. King Audriauimp6ina began the first campaigns against the Betsileo who
lived in the south. His son Radama I (1810-1828) continued the operations with
still more success, became master of the greater part of the northern highlands, and
pressed on to the east coast, where he made a treaty with the English. Provided
with firearms by the latter, he then commenced war on the Sakalavas, compelled
them to recognise his suzerainty, nominally at least, and proceeded to assert his
claim to the dominion over the whole of Madagascar, a claim which was still abso-
lutely opposed to the actual state of affairs. The sovereignty of the Hovas was
never really acknowledged in the south and southwest.
On the accession of a king the people took the oath of allegiance ; laws and
enactments were promulgated in large popular assemblies, which no longer, how-
ever, possessed any deliberative or decisive voice. The first minister was an
important officer of state. If a princess or queen-widow came to the throne, he
had to marry her, according to the settled custom, and then in most cases actually
took the reins of government.
Kadama soon quarrelled with the European power which had long cast envious
eyes on Madagascar, — with France, that is to say. The early French settlement,
Fort Dauphin, had been founded in the year 1642, on the southeast coast of the
island. A trading company, organised by a naval officer, Captain liicault, of
Dieppe, and encouraged by Cardinal Richelieu (who died on December 4, 1642),
commenced operations, but after some decades went bankrupt. The hopeless con-
ditions of this " colonisation " are illustrated by the fact that the governor, Etienue
de Flacourt (the first historian of the island, f June 10, 1660), preferred to return
to France after six years of fruitless struggle. The company transferred its rights
to the French government, which even then regarded Madagascar as its property,
but without taking much pleasure in the acquisition. An attempt of Colbert to
form an immense colonial empire out of Madagascar and the surrounding islands,
and to raise the necessary funds by founding an East India Company (1664),
seemed to promise success at first, but in consequence of the arrogant behaviour
of the governor, La Haye, it ended with the massacre of all the French settlers
and the destruction of Fort Dauphin in the year 1672. All plans for the time
being were thus stopped. The only Europeans who were left to influence the
Malagasies were adventurers and numerous pirates of various nationalities.
The Mascarenes, where, as a result of the movements on Madagascar, pros-
perous French settlements had grown up, lay, however, so near to Madagascar that
attention was constantly turned to that attractive and immense island. In the
year 1750 the island of Sainte Marie was acquired, and the ruined Fort Dauphin
regarrisoned in 1768. Soon afterward Count Moritz August Benjowski appeared
as French governor of the possessions in Madagascar. He was an enterprising but
untrustworthy character, who obtained from some chiefs on the coast the conces-
sion of the entire island, founded new settlements, and when he laid down his
u'li'-c regarded himself as owner of Madagascar, which he repeatedly but vainly
offered to the French government. His adventurous life ended on June 4, 1786,
and with it his dream of an empire of Madagascar.
After these unsuccessful efforts attempts were made to establish direct rela-
tions with the Hovas, who had meantime become powerful. In the course of these
Indonesia
••] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 577
negotiations the competition of the English, who had occupied (1810) Tamatave
on the east coast, already made itself felt. The French claims outlasted the dis-
orders of the Napoleonic era. England restored the possessions in Madagascar, so
far as any existed, to France at the same time as the island of Reunion (1814), and
it really seemed as if France was destined to find compensation in Madagascar for
the numerous losses it had sustained. The wish to occupy the island could not
fail to clash unpleasantly with the budding hopes of the Hovas for the over-
lordship. When, therefore, a settlement was once more founded on Sainte Marie
in the year 1821, the Hova king, Radama (f July 27, 1828), assumed a threatening
attitude. The French governor replied with a vigorous protest against the assump-
tion of the title of King of Madagascar by Radama. Through the energy of the
English governor of Mauritius, Sir Robert Farquhar, the influence of England
entirely won the day in Madagascar. The Hovas, whose army was organised on
an European model, took Fort Dauphin from the French, while numerous trading
advantages were granted to the English (1825).
Under the reign of Queen Ranavalona matters came once more to open hos-
tilities, which did not end gloriously for the French. Fortunately for France, the
queen, who conquered parts of the southeast of the island, roused Great Britain
also against her by her passionate hatred of foreigners and by her expulsion of
the English missionaries (1835). In the years 1838-1841 the French, who
had been called in by the princess Tsiumeik of Bueni (1839) and the prince
Tsimiar of Ankara (1840), occupied some more points on the northwest coast, par-
ticularly the island Nossi Be*, and in this way consolidated their influence among
the Sakalavas. But for the time being there was no idea of a decisive and con-
sistent policy.
The intolerable misgovernment of Queen Ranavalona finally forced the Hovas
themselves to seek help from without. Once more the French and English began
to intrigue one against the other, and dangerous complications had already been
caused when the sudden death of the queen in 1861 and the accession of Ra-
dama II, who was friendly to France, completely changed the aspect of affairs.
An age of reforms then set in, which formed a feeble counterpart to the similar
and almost contemporary process in Japan (p. 45). Even when Radama had been
murdered, on May 12, by the reactionary party, which was supported by England,
reforms were continued by his widow and successor, Rasoahe'rina. The real power
lay, however, in the hands of her husband, Rainitaiarivoy, the first minister, a mem-
ber of the Hova family Rainiharo, which, with English support, founded a sort of
palace government. The " reforms " gradually assumed a character which was
very serious for France (June 27, 1865, treaty with England). When Rasoahe'rina
died, on April 1, 1868, Ranavalona II Mayonka mounted the throne. On February
21, 1869, she, together with her husband, again of course the first minister, adopted
Christianity, and joined the Anglican Church, which had been in the meanwhile
extending its influence among the Hovas, and now acquired complete ascendancy.
The news of the French defeats in the war of 1870-1871 naturally caused a
further diminution of French influence.
(c) The French Period. — The pretensions of the Hovas and the intrigues of
the English finally compelled the French government, after long and unprofitable
negotiations, to assert by force of arms their claims to Madagascar, which was
VOL. 11 — 37
578 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [Chapter v
more and more inclining to the side of Great Britain. On June 13, 1883, Tama-
tave, on the east coast, was occupied. The death of the reigning queen (July 13)
and the accession of Ra'nava'lona III Manyuake were followed by an abortive French
expedition into the interior. But a treaty favourable to the French was concluded
on December 17, 1885. By this treaty Madagascar became a French protectorate;
a resident-general was placed in the capital, Antananarivo, to control the foreign
relations of the State. This treaty was not, however, regarded very seriously by
the Hovas, until in 1895 a new expedition, starting from the northwest coast, under
Lieutenant-General Duchesne, took the capital on September 30, after a singularly
feeble resistance on the part of the Hovas, and then asserted the French protecto-
rate by force of arms (treaty of January 18, 1896). Madagascar was declared a
French colony on August 6, 1896. Rainilairivony, the husband of the queen,
was banished to Algiers ; she herself was left for a time in possession of her title,
but in 1897 she too was deposed and brought to Reunion. In this way the king-
dom of the Hovas has been brought under French influence ; but the island as a
whole has yet to be subdued. Under the rule of France the trade of Madagascar
has greatly improved, and a preferential tariff has succeeded in checking the
English imports in favour of the French ; the exports, of which the most important
articles are gold, vanilla, and india-rubber, are now chiefly sent to France. The
construction of railways has begun, roads are being made, and the harbours, of
which Tamatave is still the most important, are the scene of busy life. For
administrative purposes the island is divided into two military territories, two
civil provinces, and a mixed territory. A small French army, partly consisting of
Senegalese troops, and a native guard are under the orders of the governor-general
(since 1896 General Jos. Simon Gallieni). The immigration from Europe is small,
while in the coast towns Chinese and Indians are already settled in considerable
numbers. The plan has lately been suggested of settling in the highlands of
Madagascar Boers from South Africa, who are unwilling to remain in then- coun-
try now that it has become English.
One of the Comoro islands, Mayotta, has been under French rule since 1841,
and in 1886 the rest of the Comoro group was annexed.1
C. THE MASCARENES
THE history of the French claims on Madagascar is closely connected with the
fact that on the Mascarenes, in Mauritius and Reunion, French colonies were
founded and plantations opened, with considerable success. The islands, when
discovered by the Portuguese Pero Mascarenhas (1505), were totally uninhabited.
Mauritius was for some time in possession of the Dutch (1640-1712), and was colo-
nised by the French in 1715, who had held settlements since 1646 on Reunion.2
In the interval between 1734 and 1746 Bertrand-Fran^ois Mane* de la Bourdon-
nais, whom we have already met in India (p. 460), was French governor here.
The introduction of the remunerative industry of coffee-planting increased the
prosperity and the population of the Mascarenes during the course of the eigh-
teenth century ; afterward sugar-growing was extensively introduced.
1 Vide the map of Africa in Vol. III.
2 " Mascareigne " to 1649 ; " Isle-de-Bourbon" to the French Revolution, and again from 1814 to
1848; " Isle-de-Bonaparte," 1809-1814.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 570
During the Napoleonic wars England, in spite of the resistance of the Creoles,
took possession of both islands, and after the conclusion of peace retained Mau-
ritius, together with the Seychelles1 and Eodriguez (cf. above, p. 475). The
necessity of obtaining cheap labour for the plantations on lie*union continually
directed the attention of the French to Madagascar, and accounts in some measure
for the ultimate reduction of that great island beneath French rule. The abolition
of slavery on Reunion in the years 1846 and 1848 produced no serious conse-
quences. The French creole is as predominant in Mauritius now as before the
English occupation. At the same time the immigration from India has assumed
large proportions.
1 Called after the Frenchman Moreau de Sechelles ; more correctly written, therefore, Sechelles.
580 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
VI
THE HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIAN
OCEAN
BY PROFESSOR DR. KARL WEULE
1. THE POSITION AND SHAPE OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
"The history of trade is the history of international commerce and of geography, and both
combined form the history of the civilization of our race." — 0. PESCHEL.
OF all parts of the mighty ocean which encircles the earth none, next to
the Mediterranean, seems by its position and shape more adapted to play
a part in the history of the world than the Indian Ocean. Just as the
Mediterranean basin, so important for the course of the history of the
human race, parts the immense mass of the Old World on the west and breaks it
up into numerous sections, so the Indian Ocean penetrates the same land mass
from the south in the shape of an incomparably vaster and crescent-like gulf,
having the continents of Africa and Australia on either side, while directly
opposite its northern extremity lies the giant Asia. In the number, therefore, of
the continents surrounding it, the Indian Ocean is inferior to none of the larger
sea-basins, — neither to its two great companion oceans in the east and west, nor
to the diminutive Mediterranean in the north; each of them is bounded by
three continents.
It is, however, less the number than the relative position of the countries which
border it that, apart from many other causes, determines the historical r61e of an
ocean. In this respect the Pacific and the Atlantic are wonderfully alike. The
elongated continent of America on the one side is common to both ; while Asia and
Australia frame the Pacific, Europe and Africa frame the Atlantic on the other
side. In the case of the former the three continents enclose a wedge of enormous
size, whose historical importance is not inconsiderable. The most remarkable
characteristic of this historical role lies, however, in the fact that its centre of
gravity has hitherto rested on the west side, the side that is bordered by two
continents. Corresponding to this, the centre of gravity in the case of the
Atlantic has up to the present moment always lain on the east side of that long
and tortuous channel which was peculiarly adapted to lead the human race out
from the enclosed basin of the Mediterranean into the ocean, and by so doing to
enlarge the narrowly defined sphere of ancient history into one coextensive with
the wurld.
Iii the Mediterranean the political centre of gravity has rarely or never lain at
the geometrical centre ; but it has always moved along the longitudinal axis of
this basin. Sometimes it has moved from east to west. On the other haud, there
have been epochs when the movement was unmistakably in the reverse direc-
tion. Apart from those powers of antiquity which lay in the eastern parts of the
I
THE IX1J
rding to TLWeule , S.Ruge and, i
Soutlverb.
-few /
.ar& o&snia,
Oldeet Arab seulemerjtMiown
occup led by France 1 750 1
Mkdagascar L Y e
T. fc
Equatorial Scale 1=45000000
currents I ^^^ i^j^j^. ^
I direction of currents.
• Preraiting dtrettion of wind, in January
* * Calms in January
. Tribal names
lines
Priivled by the Biblii
OCEAN
.Ocean of the German Marine Obs-Y
Holla nd
S T R A L I A
European. Posse s sions
German, \ \ftrUish/ \ Wrench,
— \ftaHan, — ^Portuguese.
130
elies InstiULt Leipzig.
York: D odd,. Mead& C°
ssr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD ssi
Mediterranean — Egypt and the Greco-Macedonian world — all the others, from
the time of ancient Home to that of the Normans and the Crusades, from Venice
and Genoa to the modern great powers of the Western Mediterranean, have often
turned their faces toward the east. An apparent exception is only found in the
Punic power of Carthage, which persistently remained in the West ; yet the Phoe-
nician mother country looked to the Far East for at least some portion of her work.
This repeated trend of the Mediterranean nations toward the East is nothing
accidental or mysterious. Just as the most important events in the history of the
Pacific have centred round the coast of Eastern Asia, so in the history of the Medi-
terranean, a considerable, and sometimes the leading, role has been played by the
coast of Western Asia. So long has Asia been the nurse of civilization, so potent
has been the attraction of her mysterious recesses and boundless treasures, that
this continent could not fail to engross the attention of its neighbours. And there
is no reason to be surprised if the spell of Asia has exercised an equal influence on
the peoples of the Indian Ocean. This would be quite explicable, even if we
thought of this sea in no connection with any other seas, and the fact is irresist-
ibly forced upon us if we consider how the Mediterranean is linked to India, India
to Eastern Asia, and Eastern Asia to the West, by ties of reciprocal intercourse.
For the intercourse of the West with the Far East no more convenient or natural
way can be offered than the Indian Ocean, and especially its northern part.
Round this northern track the history of the Indian Ocean, so far as it has been
affected by foreign incursions, has chiefly centred.
The frame in which the Indian Ocean is set shows a rich variety of configura-
tion. Only the west side, the east coast, that is, of Africa, is massy and unbroken,
except for the huge island of Madagascar and some groups of coastal islands. By
contrast the eastern and northern coasts appear all the more indented ; and yet
they are absolutely different in their kind. The east side terminates to the south
in the Australian continent, which for long ages was able to pass in lonely tran-
quillity an existence unknown to history, until modern times finally brought it
within the range of politics. But Australia is directly connected on the north
with a region that has no parallel on the face of the globe for the rich variety of its
configuration, — the island world, that is, of Indonesia. This has been the natural
" bridge of nations " toward the east from the earliest times to the present day.
The northern shore also, from its bulk, is unique in its conformation. Southern
Asia, as indeed the whole continent, is a land of vast distances. Three immense
peninsulas, on a scale of size that recurs nowhere else, jut out into the sea, and the
ocean penetrates the land in gulfs of corresponding breadth and length which attain
the dimensions of fair-sized seas. The formation seems at first sight almost too
colossal to guarantee to the adjoining part of the sea an active role. But on this
point we must always bear in mind that the two most important offshoots of the
Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, approach within a short distance
of the Mediterranean, the centre of Western civilization. It stretches out to it, as
it were, two feelers ; it virtually becomes the eastern continuation of the Medi-
terranean.
The geometrical axis of the Indian Ocean runs, like that of the other two great
oceans, from north to south ; it thus follows a direction which at no time and in
no place has been strongly marked in the history of mankind. It was by the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf that the Mediterranean peoples approached the Indian
582 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [cfapter VI
Ocean. Thence their path lay southeast to Indonesia, or southwest to the coast
of Africa. Similarly, then, the historical axis of the Indian Ocean runs in the
direction of the circles of latitude. It is therefore parallel to the great routes by
which communications have been maintained between Central Asia and Europe on
the one hand, between Oceania and the Malay Archipelago on the other.
The Indian Ocean is, as Friedrich Katzel justly argues, physically not a true
ocean. The Pacific and the Atlantic are bounded by a continent only in the east
and the west ; toward the north and south they stretch away without any bound-
aries to the polar latitudes, so that all hydrospheric and atmospheric phenomena
can be developed on their immense areas. The case of the Indian Ocean is
different. It is unbounded only in the direction toward the Antarctic, to which
it exposes its full breadth. On the north it is enclosed like an inland sea. The
development, therefore, of oceanic phenomena is one-sided and incomplete ; and
thus the farther one goes to the north the more apparent is the transition to the
character of an inland sea.
From the historical standpoint the Indian Ocean takes a far higher place. It
is true that its historical importance is in no way equal to that of the Mediterranean,
though the latter is tiny in comparison, and it certainly does not attain to that of the
Atlantic, perhaps not even to that of the Pacific ; but it far exceeds that of the seas
of the second magnitude, such as those which border on "Western Europe and
Eastern Asia. It lies, indeed, exactly in the latitude where on the whole globe
the " zone of greatest historical density " begins, being closed toward the north by
the mighty barrier of the Asiatic continent, and therefore taking no share in that
vast transoceanic international commerce which is so characteristic of its two
more powerful neighbours. On the other hand, however, this ocean, lying as it
does on the southern edge of the Old World, penetrating at so many points the
lands of ancient history, and offering such facilities for international intercourse,
has been the theatre of events which may indeed be disconnected and wanting in
grandeur, but for all that are eminently suggestive. Even in the case of the other
two large oceans, the scenes of historical events are not uniformly distributed
over the area ; in the Atlantic Ocean they are unusually numerous over its north-
ern half, but trifling in the south ; so, too, in the Pacific the historical centre of
gravity lies on the northern hemisphere. But what there spreads over a space of
gigantic breadth is contracted in the case of the Indian Ocean to a narrow border,
which, both by sea and land, seldom deviates from the coast line.
The unbridged and unbroken expanse of the Pacific, and still more so that of
the Atlantic, have made them both until a quite late epoch insuperable barriers to
mankind. It is only when the means of communication have been highly per-
fected that, by connecting the nations, they have, to a degree unsuspected before,
encouraged the impulse of the human race to expand. The Indian Ocean, from
its shape, which is closed on the one side, has never proved a barrier. Its two
comer pillars on the south, Australia and South Africa, have never felt the need
to form relations one with the other, and for the countries lying to the north it
has always been easier to avoid it, or to cross it, by hugging the coast or cautiously
creeping from cape to cape. In this way the thoroughfares of the Indian Ocean
are strangely unlike those of other seas.
These thoroughfares, so far as they are confined to the sea, resemble chords
drawn from point to point of a great semicircle. They cut the circumference
yKSiS^Sn HISTORY OF THE WORLD 583
of the ocean at the points where the population clusters most densely on the coasts.
A regular sheaf of rays issues from Eastern Africa ; one line to Arabia and the
Bed Sea, a second to India, a third diagonally through the semicircle from Mada-
gascar to the Malay Archipelago. A fourth line connects Ceylon with Indonesia ;
another, the Indonesian medley of islands with Australia. But far more important
than all these is that great chord which intersects the semicircle, almost parallel
to the base, between the lied Sea and the Sunda Sea, and thus cuts all other lines.
It is chiefly on this route that the history of the Indian Ocean has been made.
Both the ancient and the modern world have used this path.
The land routes also which border upon this ocean form a comparatively simple
system, although they are naturally less subject to general laws than the maritime
routes. In Eastern Africa, in Arabia, and in the Malay Archipelago the chief land
routes have followed the coasts ; it is only in India and the Malay Peninsula that
they strike inland. But there are many routes of minor importance, and these run
in the most diverse directions. This is only what must be expected in countries of
such widely different character as those which enclose the Indian Ocean.
It might be expected that the two deep indentations of the Bed Sea and Persian
Gulf would make coast routes inconvenient. But this is not the case. Both have
entrances so narrow as to be crossed with ease by entire nations and races, and it
is easy for the land traveller to pass round the head of either. But in the south
the conformation of the land masses is such as to make many parts of them in-
accessible. Both Africa and Australia possess a comparatively small coast line,
and there are no natural highways to connect the interior of either continent with
the sea. The north, however, with exception of the Arabian peninsula, is some-
what more favourably situated. It is true that the vast peninsula of the Deccan
lacks any access to the sea ; but to its base, where India proper lies in its full
breadth, the Indus and the Ganges and their enormous river basins form the best
international highways in the world. If fortune had ever smiled on these river
basins sufficiently to allow them to be inhabited by energetic peoples, skilled in
seamanship, nothing could have hindered these from making India predominant in
the politics of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and impressing Indian civilization
upon the whole of that vast area. This brings us to the salient point in the his-
tory of the Indian Ocean generally ; the preliminary conditions to historical great-
ness are already existent, but the adjacent peoples have only shown local and
spasmodic inclinations to make full use of them. The native races of this area
have contributed little to history in comparison with the foreigners who at one
time and another have invaded it. From millennium to millennium this condition
has become worse. The importance of the Indian Ocean has declined, while that
of the Atlantic and the Pacific has increased. In these the white race has
triumphed over nature and the inferiors of its own species ; but in the Indian
Ocean white men have met, at the best of times, with only a qualified success.
They have found the peoples by which this ocean is bordered too immense and too
inert for conquest.
2. THE DAWN OF HISTORY
THE remote past of the Indian Ocean is wrapped in the same obscurity as that
of most parts of the earth's surface. We are tempted to dwell on the enigma in
this case because more than one investigator has been inclined to look for the
584 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter VI
earliest home of primitive man in one part or another of this ocean. But it is
idle to speculate when we have no materials for a conclusion. We must rather
take as our starting-point the moment when pressure exerted from the heart of
Asia drove out the inhabitants of its southern coasts to find a refuge and a new
home in this ocean. Supposing this expelled people not to have already inhabited
Ceylon, it could only diverge from the direction in which it was pushed as far as
this easily accessible island ; any further advance over the surface of the ocean was
barred at once by the want of a bridge of islands leading out to it. On the other
hand, this people might roam for vast distances toward the southwest or the south-
east without let or hindrance ; for neither the road to the southwestern part of
the Old World nor the bridge of islands to the Pacific offered any appreciable
obstacles, even for migrating peoples who possessed little knowledge of seaman-
ship. Both paths, indeed, had been trodden by that dark race on its retreat
before the wave of Asiatic nations rolling from north to south. Even at the
present day we find scanty remnants of it on Ceylon, as in Southern India itself.
We find additional traces in Farther India or Malacca, indeed with some certainty
even in Southern Arabia. But it is far more strongly represented in the Indian
Archipelago as far as the Philippines and Melanesia, and even still farther in the
east. We find it on the largest scale, however, on the continent of Africa, where
it forms the chief component element of the population.
These migrations gave the dark-skinned peoples hardly any occasion for great
achievements in seamanship. The passage to Ceylon was simple enough ; nor did
the easterly path with its thickly sown clusters of islands require any pre-
tensions to navigation. It is impossible to ascertain whether the early ancestors
of the present negroes crossed the ocean on its lateral arms, the Persian Gulf and
the Red Sea, or whether they went round them. Even if the negroes on their
march to the new home chose the sea route, the few miles of the passage over
those narrow arms of the sea were no more able to turn them into a nation of
seafarers, than their old homes on the coasts of Asia had served to lure them out
on to the open sea. Even in their new home they remained aloof from the ocean
and averse to it. Was it the vastness of the spaces in Africa, in which they lost
themselves, or were nautical skill and love of the sea foreign to the race ? The
last alternative would seem to be the true one ; for at no time and in no place have
members of the negro race performed noteworthy feats at sea. In Africa their
efforts were exhausted by the occupation of Madagascar, which was close at hand,
and of the coast islands from the mainland. In the island world of Indonesia
and Melanesia even the admixture of Malay blood did not raise the dark-skinned
man above the level of coasting navigation. We have therefore little to do with
him in what follows ; in the sphere of the Indian Ocean he is as unimportant a
factor in the history of the world, as we shall afterward find him in the Atlantic
Ocean (Vol. VIII). The lands which he inhabits may still play a part in history ;
but he has shown little or no ambition to share in the life of the outer world.
The negro struggles toward the coast, and is contented when he has reached it.
In spite of the small historical importance of the black race, its diffusion over
the countries round the Indian Ocean is an event of great significance ; it creates
in the island realm of Southeast Asia the preliminary conditions for those intricate
mixtures and blendings the result of which we see in the motley conditions of
the population of Indonesia and the Pacific world at the present day. The dark-
JPS&SS22"] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 585
coloured races have never been numerous enough there to constitute any noticeable
check on a wave of nations as it presses on. That island world is not an uninter-
rupted stretch of shore on which a surging wave of peoples may burst ; it rather
resembles a reef pierced and perforated, through which the tide rushes without
finding any great resistance, but which it does not pass without leaving behind
on it many objects brought with it. Thus when the Malay stream of nations,
giving way before a pressure from north to south, was forced out to the sea from
the southeast of the Asiatic continent, it did not touch the zone of Indonesia-
Melanesia, without influencing the negroid race which it found there ; nor did it
leave the country without carrying with it the traces of this probably prolonged
contact over the entire breadth of the Pacific to the east. The results of this
contact vary according to the respective locality and the duration of the reciprocal
action. Melanesians and Polynesians are the two ends of the scale : the former is
the product of a complete fusion of the two races, the latter seems only to have
a negroid tinge. The intermediate steps are numerous and varied, — Micronesians,
Alfurs, and Negritos only mark sharply outlined groups in this medley. Indi-
rectly the Australian may be reckoned in ; for, in addition to Polynesian influences,
Melanesian are not to be rejected.
The Pacific and the Atlantic have each in their turn contributed to develop
these ethnic types. If we retain the customary division of the Malay race into an
eastern and a western branch, this classification coincides more or less with the
region of the two oceans. But while the eastern branch saw its historical task
discharged by the occupation of the vast Pacific world, and made hardly any per-
ceptible advances into the turmoil of the history of mankind, notwithstanding a
skill in seamanship which approached the miraculous, the Western Malays, firmly
planted on their native soil of Indonesia, and from the very first efficient and able
seamen, presented a different picture. Not only did they advance over the Indian
Ocean to Ceylon and Madagascar, but in the majority of the homes which they per-
manently occupied played a part whose significance is far greater than that of
their eastern kinsmen and of nearly all the inhabitants of the Indian Ocean.
They set foot nowhere on the mainland except in the peninsula of Malacca, and
are the true children of the ocean ; if they did not succeed in raising themselves
to be its acknowledged masters, that is perhaps less due to deficiencies of character
and natural ability than to the division and subdivision of their homes over so
many islands, and to the position of the Malay Archipelago at the meeting point
of two such mighty civilizations as the Chinese and the Indian. It is true that
the influence of China was mainly confined to the field of commercial politics ;
but this only made the influence of India the wider in its day. This latter
reacted with quite unprecedented vigour upon the culture and the spiritual
life of the Western Archipelago ; and although it could not bring the Malay, who
was by temperament far keener, under the yoke of religious ideas, and thus bind
him to the native soil in the way in which the Hindus were bound, still under
the burning rays of Indian philosophy the political energy of the insular nation
was more prejudicially influenced than we are ordinarily accustomed to suppose.
To fix the era of the migrations of the negroid and Malay peoples, and thus the
beginning of the historical role of the Indian Ocean, is as impossible as it is unim-
portant. The problem of the causes of those ethnic movements is far weightier.
The immediate causes of both may be assumed to be the efforts of Central Asiatic
586 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
nations to reach the south. It is very probable that Mongoloid peoples, always
the disturbing element in Asia, were the prime factors ; for Further India indeed,
this assumption is certain, since in the modern Indo-Chinese with their countless
groups we may see the descendants, much crossed in race, of that wave which,
as it broke on the littoral of South Asia, drove the Malays to retreat to the sea
that lay before them. The new population followed them down to the sea, but
<lid not launch out on the sea in order to command it any more than any other
branches of the great family, and thus never attained any place in the history
either < >f the Pacific Ocean in the east, or of the Indian Ocean in the south and west.
Even the local infusion of Malay blood never raised the inhabitants of Further
India beyond the stage of piracy.
Difficult as it is in the northeast, it is still more difficult in the north west of
the ocean to gain even an imperfect idea of the conditions in remotest antiquity.
If we are correct in assuming an immigration of African negroes from the northern
edge of the Indian Ocean, and if the most natural explanation of this lies in the
theory of pressure from the north, we still know nothing accurately of the period or
the causes of that pressure, nor of the quarter whence these movements started. The
only certain fact is that long ages have elapsed since the last negroid wave of nations
crossed the axis of the Red Sea in the direction from northeast to southwest ; for
after it the whole Hamitic throng moved along the same road, and its last detach-
ment, the ancient Egyptians, were a highly civilized people thousands of years
before our chronology begins. The modest share of the Indian Ocean in this
section of the history of mankind goes back to distant epochs, about which we
ahall probably never be able to express a definite opinion. It is in its length
and breadth prehistoric. Long ages must have passed before the historically
authenticated relations of the West and the East were formed through the
instrumentality of those same Hamitic peoples, who formerly had barred the
movement from the East to the West.
3. THE HISTORIC PERIOD DOWN TO THE APPEARANCE
OF ISLAM
THERE is as great a difference between the histories as there is between the
shapes of the three great oceans. In the case of the Pacific the chief interest at-
taching to its past history is ethnological ; we wish to know how within this area
ne\v races have been evolved by the blending and intermixture of the old. Until
comparatively recent times there has been little to interest the historian of eco-
nomic or political developments. Even in the case of the Atlantic we have to
deal with a sea which was primarily a high road of emigration from the Old
\Vnrld to the New; and though the political and commercial importance of
America has increased by leaps and bounds in the course of the last two or three
centuries, the importance of the Atlantic as an emigrant's pathway still equals its
importance as a theatre of international relations. The Indian Ocean shows no
such peculiarity. It too has sent out mighty armies of peoples eastward and
westward; but those which went westward have mostly remained strangers to
it and kept aloof ; the others, in the east, passed rapidly from its dominion. It
has certainly created nations; where this task faced it on a large scale, as in the
#^1£i£32r] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 587
Archipelago and in Australia, it has had to share it with its larger neighbours ;
while where the task appealed to it on a small scale, as on the coasts of East
Africa and on Madagascar, there the result is not commensurate with the dignity
and size of the ocean. Again, the political activity of the Indian Ocean has never
been prominent. Where growing nations live, as in the western archipelago, on
Madagascar, and on the coasts of South and East Arabia, there the great far-
reaching empires are wanting ; and where these exist, as in the whole of Southern
Asia from the Euphrates on the west to the Brahmaputra in the east, there is no
nautical efficiency or liking for the open sea.
What life and movement there has been on the highways of the Indian Ocean
is mainly due to commerce. The history of this ocean is predominantly economic,
and there is no reason to think that if we could penetrate the darkness of the pre-
historic period we should find a radically different state of things. Its activity in
this sphere is the characteristic feature of its historical aspect ; many features of
it may have been changed as millennia rolled on, but the general expression
remains the same. All the nations which ventured out on to the Indian Ocean in
times known to history were chiefly induced by commercial objects to make such
voyages. The historical role of the Indian Ocean must therefore be regarded pre-
dominantly from the standpoint of the history of trade. The range of view is
only apparently limited; in reality it discloses prospects of remarkable depth and
reveals glimpses of the rise and fall of nations, such as we never find on an equal
scale in the far wider and more richly diversified fields of view presented by the
two other great oceans. Here the history of trade is in fact the history of
the civilization of our race.
It is impossible to picture to oneself the historical significance of the Indian
Ocean without primarily thinking of the weighty part which the Eed Sea and the
Persian Gulf have been called on to play within this area. These two northwest-
erly lateral arms of the ocean are the natural canals and the obvious connecting
links between east and west. But even more than the southern approach to the
great Mesopotamian plain, whose value would be more clearly realised by us if we
possessed greater details about the trade of the Elamites, the ditch-like Red Sea,
which reaches close up to the Mediterranean world, has facilitated and maintained
this connection. Not only was it quite early the scene of commercial inter-
course in general, but it was also the pathway of international communications
at an era when the Pacific, like the Atlantic, was an unnavigated waste of waters.
And although in the course of human history there was a long period during
which the Red Sea relapsed into a profound tranquillity, yet no proof of its
historical value is clearer than the fact that an occurrence so simple as its union
with the Mediterranean, which was accomplished between 1859 and 1869,
restored to it at one blow its old role. It is not indeed any longer the only avenue
of international trade, but its busy waters even now, when the East has been
opened up to the widest extent, are the great link of connection between East
and West.
A. THE PERIOD DOWN TO THE APPEARANCE OF THE CHINESE
(a) The Ancient Egyptians. — The commerce in the northwest of the Indian
Ocean goes back far into remote antiquity. Although the ancient Egyptians, with
588 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [cha&er VI
their invincible predilection for seclusion, never maintained a permanent fleet 011 .
the Red Sea, yet they repeatedly tried at the most different periods to bring them-
selves into direct communication with the countries producing the spices which
they used so much and valued so highly, — that is to say, with Southern Arabia
and the eastern horn of Africa. The last king of the eleventh dynasty, Seanch-
kara, commissioned Heuu to fit out an expedition from Coptos to " Punt "; a similar
task was entrusted to the fleet of Queen Hathepfut (c. 1490 B. c.) on its voyage
south. We must certainly regard the Egyptians as the earliest authenticated
navigators of the Red Sea and the adjoining parts of the Indian Ocean. Although
those isolated expeditions and even the fleet maintained by Eamses III (1200-
1168) can hardly have served to point out the way to their Punic successors, they
are, however, noteworthy as evidence of a nautical spirit in a people which other-
wise was so firmly rooted to its own soil.
(b) Itvlia. — The magnet, however, which chiefly attracted navigators into this
ocean was the peninsula of India. India and the Indian Ocean are two inseparable
ideas, as is shown by the two names. And yet this close relationship only holds
good in a limited sense. The peninsula to the south of the Himalayas is by its
geographical position fitted to rule the surrounding seas more than any other coun-
try which bounds the Indian Ocean. Nevertheless during the course of its history
it has never attained a commanding position, from its own unaided strength at any
rate. Yet the peninsula is not so vast as to hinder the thorough development
of its latent strength, represented by an excessively dense population ; nor is the
unfavourable configuration of its coast line the cause of the amazing dearth of
historical influence. The fault lies simply and solely in the ethnographical
conditions of India.
The Aryans on their descent from the highlands of Iran into the sultry
plains of India were forced to take over another nature, and fell victims to it.
While adapting themselves in the course of time to the new conditions, they paid
the natural tribute to sub-tropical and tropical climates; they underwent an
inner development which culminated in a religious expansion, and never felt the
necessity of employing against the outside world the power of their overwhelming
numbers and their superior intellectual endowments. The fact that the Vedic
hymns and Manu's code mention Aryan voyages, for whose extent toward the West
the ancient island Dioscorides (Socotra) is again and again brought forward as a
proof, or the fact that from the use of camphor at the luxurious courts of Indian
princes in the time of Buddha we may infer trade communications between India
and China, go for very little. The Indian Aryans never made a permanent habit of
navigation. India never felt the need of seeking the outside world ; but it always
was destined to be the goal for the other nations, by land as well as by sea. Its
relations to the sea are close, but one-sided ; the numerous routes which emanate
from it in every direction are not its own possession, they merely prove that the
attention of all the peoples to west and south and east was riveted upon this
country. From its vast treasures it has given to the world more than any other
country of the earth, but the world has had to fetch these treasures for itself.
(c) The Phoenicians, the Hebrctrx, and Xeclw II of Egypt. — The first attempts
at direct maritime communication with India from the west were certainly made by
Historical Importance"]
of the Indian Ocean J
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
589
the Phoenicians. Even if we put aside the accounts given by Strabo of their early
settlements on the Persian Gulf and of their emporia on Tylos and Arados, yet their
trading voyages on the northwestern Indian Ocean go back to the second millen-
nium B. c., since at the time of the expedition sent by Hiram and Solomon to
Ophir from Eziougeber and Elath, the route to that mysterious land of gold was
well known and regularly frequented. The ease with which they had acquired
the monopoly for the Mediterranean must have encouraged the Phoenicians to
gain a firm footing on the other expanse of sea lying within their sphere of power,
especially since this new field for action, with its outlandish treasures, which
then were so eagerly coveted by the civilized world of that time, promised advan-
tages such as the Mediterranean, long since navigated by them, could hardly
afford. It is certain that they strove to obtain the sole power on the Erythraean
Sea, but they did not gain their object. Separated both from the Persian Gulf
and the Red Sea by broad strips of land, they were always driven to make treaties
with the inhabitants of the respective countries ; and if, as in the case of Solomon
and his successors, these treaties included the participation of the sovereigns, they
were forced to comprise these latter in the bargain. They could acquiesce in this
condition with more equanimity, since their great superiority at sea could not fail
to secure to them the victory in the competition.
The advance of the Hebrews toward the Indian Ocean is, however, more note-
worthy from the historical standpoint. Though at that early period and down to
the Babylonian captivity they were far from being a commercial nation, and though
their political fabric was barely consolidated by the end of that millennium, yet
under their keen-sighted king David they already secured with set purpose the
northern extremity of the Eed Sea (Edom). The brilliant success which attended
the friendly alliance of his son Solomon with Hiram, king of Tyre, owing to
the above-mentioned expeditions, was only the natural consequences of David's
policy. There is no better proof of the value which the Hebrews placed on the
access to the Indian Ocean than the eagerness with which a whole series of sub-
sequent sovereigns attempted to keep it open. As often as the kingdom of
Judah was hard pressed and cut off from the sea, it was always one of the first
tasks of its princes to subdue afresh the insubordinate Edomites (Idumseans), to
rebuild the repeatedly destroyed town of Elath, and thus to command the gulf of
Akabah. Judah, humiliated and hemmed in by Sheshonk I (Shishak) of Egypt
during the reign of Rehoboam, showed once more a vigorous expansion under
Jehoshaphat (860), who restored Elath and fitted out a new fleet. Then under
Jehorain the Idumaeans regained their independence, until Uzziah (Azariah), in
the first half of the eighth century, subjugated them for the third time, and rebuilt
Elath. Under Ahaz (c. 730) the star of Judah on the Indian Ocean paled for ever ;
the Idumeeans henceforth permanently occupied their ancestral homes.
The loss by the Hebrew nation of its position on the Indian Ocean marks an
important epoch in the history of both. In the history of the development of the
policy and civilization of Judah it signifies the close of the first and only age of
united, conscious, and willing efforts at expansion in the direction of the ocean.
Being driven back into the interior, Judah was deprived for all succeeding time of
the possibility of winning a position in the world as a political unity. For the
Indian Ocean, however, that forced retreat of the Jewish people meant the conclu-
sion of a period when for the first time a nation, to which no seamanlike qualities
590 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
could be attributed, learnt and recognised with full consciousness its own value
to the history of the world. This view was the more weighty since that nation
could not reach the coasts of the Indian Ocean except under the most laborious
conditions, and could only hold them by displaying an energy which had a
beneficent effect in the midst of the historical supineness of the majority of
nations inhabiting those parts.
The Phoenicians cannot be compared with the Hebrews in this respect. This
people, which always aimed at commercial profit without political power, was
deterred by no obstacles from opening up new spheres. Never trusting to force for
success, they were past masters of the art of reaching their goal, not by opposing
an enemy or a rival, but by utilising him. They had made full use of the Hebrews
for this end so long as these latter held a position on the gulf of Akabah, and they
did not hesitate then for a moment, although from a purely political aspect they
were not entirely free agents, to lend the Egyptians the support of their com-
mercial policy. The results of this alliance culminated in the celebrated cir-
cumnavigation of Africa under Necho II in 608 B. c., a feat which throws the
most vivid light on the boldness and skill of the Phoenician mariners; these
qualities are exhibited also in the squadron which the Egyptian king, doubtless at
the suggestion of the Phoenicians, maintained on the Mediterranean and the
Arabian Seas.
(<f) The Transit Trade on the Indian Ocean, 600-30 B.C. — The trade which
in the last six centuries before the beginning of our present era never completely
ceased, either on the Eed Sea or the Persian Gulf or in the adjacent parts of the
Indian Ocean, at no time went beyond the stage of transit trade which it had
reached at an early time. Transmitted by the most varied nationalities, it re-
mained for that reason insignificant, being carried on from one intermediate station
to another. No change was effected in this respect when Darius, son of Hystaspes,
completed the canal begun by Eamses II, from the Delta to the Eed Sea,
and when Ptolemy II Philadelphos (284-247) restored the work which had mean-
time fallen into ruin. What difference did it make that Nebuchadnezzar II
founded Teredon at the mouth of the Euphrates, primarily for trading pur-
poses, and improved the channels of the Euphrates and Tigris for navigation
by the construction of numerous windings ? The improvements which he had
made were ruined by the rulers of the family of the Achaemenids. Besides this,
since one world empire after another enslaved Western Asia as far as the Nile,
the Phoenicians had disappeared from the Indian Ocean, thus inflicting a loss to
the wholesale commerce which the inhabitants of Southern Arabia (Hadramaut,
etc.), with their still very deficient means of navigation, were, in spite of all their
efforts, quite unable to replace.
Even the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great (p. 405), vast as is its his-
torical importance, did not immediately bear the fruits, so far as maritime trade
went, which the conqueror had endeavoured to obtain. Egyptian Alexandria itself
only developed some centuries after his death into that which it ought to have
become immediately after its foundation, — the focus, that is to say, for the trade
between India and the Mediterranean, and consequently the emporium for the
combined trade of the ancient world. But Alexander's own short maritime ex-
cursion into the region of the mouths of the Indus, which symbolised his
Historical Importance~\
of the Indian Ocean
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
591
annexation of the ocean ; further, the celebrated expedition of Nearchus from
the Indus to the mouths of the Euphrates ; then the attempt of the king to open
once more the long-neglected route from the Persian Gulf round Arabia ; his plan
for the circumnavigation of Africa ; finally, the improvement which he made in
the navigation up to Babylon, and the founding of the port of Charax at the
mouth of the Tigris, — all this bears eloquent testimony to the importance which
Alexander attributed to the Indian Ocean, and to the part which the newly opened-
up sea was intended to play in the future schemes of the conqueror. The early
death of the monarch brought these plans to an abrupt end.
Nevertheless the magnificently displayed activity of the Macedonian ruler was
not altogether barren of the results which had been expected from it ; on the con-
trary, its subsequent effects drew India and the Indian Ocean out from the gloom
of Oriental seclusion into the full light of Hellenistic culture. Babylon, indeed,,
which, after the removal of the Seleucid capital to Antiochia rapidly succumbed
to the newly founded rival, Seleuceia (Ctesiphon), became neither the political
nor the intellectual nor the commercial centre of the civilized world at that time.
But while, before Alexander, India was known to the Greeks from the meagre
accounts of a few travellers, after that brilliant epoch the maritime communication
with the East continued uninterruptedly for nearly a thousand years. Favoured
by the farseeing policy of the Ptolemies, which culminated in the construction of
the canal to the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, in the founding of ports on the Red
Sea, and in securing the old route to Coptos, the intercourse of the West with
India now rose above the stage of transit trade practised for so many centuries :
it became direct, and in its still modest dimensions formed the intermediate
step to international commerce on a larger scale.
(e) The Beginnings of an International Commerce in the Imperial Days of
Rome. — The year 30 B. c., when Egypt was proclaimed a Roman province, intro-
duced quite new conditions of communication over the Indian Ocean. The way
to India, so rich in treasures, now lay open and free to a nation whose material
requirements in spite of all politic self-restraint had enormously increased. The
Romans therefore made full and comprehensive use of the newly opened road.
Yet even under these altered circumstances their intercourse with the East would
not have gone far beyond the earlier stage, had not the new rulers by the utilisa-
tion of the monsoons profitably employed a new power which at once enabled
them to renounce for ever the hitherto traditional coasting navigation. The dis-
covery of this phenomenon, peculiar to the northern Indian Ocean, which was made
about the middle of the first century A. D., is ascribed to the Greek navigator Hip-
palus, after whom, indeed, the southwest monsoon has been called. On the one
hand, this for the first time rendered real voyages on the high seas possible, and
on the other hand, the regular alternation of the two opposite winds compelled the
traders to adopt a regulated system of navigation, which, besides, was too convenient
to be abandoned. In the succeeding period Indian embassies are no longer a
rarity in Rome, and the Arabian Sea was traversed to a degree hitherto unknown.
Alexandria also now realised the intentions of its founder. One fact alone filled
the hearts of the Roman economists with deep concern, — that this brisk trade did
not swell the national revenue. Even then the Indian trade displayed the character-
istic peculiarity that the exports were not balanced by any imports. Pliny, besides
592 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
Strabo, makes the observation, aiid under Tiberius the Senate seriously considered
by what measures it could stem the constant outflow of Eoman gold to the East.
B. FROM THE APPEARANCE OF THE CHINESE ON THE SCENE TO MAHOMET
FROM the earliest times of which we have any authentic information the Indian
Ocean has never served any other purpose than that of being the road to India, the
eagerly sought for goal of the West. As might be expected from the scanty
resources the results were meagre, nor did they become important until coasting
navigation was abandoned. From that moment the aspect of the Indian Ocean
immediately changed. India ceased to be the alternate goal of navigators and
explorers. Ceylon and the Golden Chersonese (Malacca) were now reached from
the West, and after the second half of the first century A. D. the merchants of the
Roman Empire penetrated as far as Kattigara. Whether we are to identify this
place, as Von Richthofen supposes, with Tongking, or, as others maintain, with
Canton, there is no doubt that the Romans who reached Kattigara came into con-
tact with the Chinese. So for the first time in the period of authenticated history
this people is drawn into the affairs of the Indian Ocean, where it was afterward
to play so prominent a role. The emperor 'Antun (= M. Aurelius Antoninus), from
the empire of Ta tsin (cf. pp. 79 and 153), sent in 166 an embassy to the Far East;
and besides other Roman expeditions, an Indian mission tried to form closer ties
with China than mere commercial intercourse could obtain.
(a) Tke Chinese. — The efforts of the Chinese people at sea have already been
shortly illustrated in Vol. I (pp. 576, 577). Chinese navigation, so far as it
touched the Indian Ocean, presents the peculiar feature of always advancing toward
the west, until it came into contact with that of the western peoples. This contact
is what it required, but it avoided any further progress or overlapping. Accord-
ingly, in the fourteen to eighteen centuries during which we have to consider the
Chinese intercourse on the Indian Ocean, this latter has witnessed a drama such
as no other sea can show. In all other cases where a new sphere for trade and in-
tercourse has been obtained, the zone of contact always moves only in the direction
of that new sphere. In complete contrast to this rule the sphere of contact of the
intercourse between China and the West undergoes variations, which extend over
the whole breadth of the Indian Ocean, from the coasts of Malacca on the east
to the Persian Gulf, probably indeed to Aden on the west. If the western nations
limit the domain of their voyages, the Chinese, in conformity with their undeniable
commercial spirit, follow them with their merchantmen into more western regions ;
but if enterprising captains of Western Asia or Europe push further toward the
east, the son of the Middle Kingdom gives way without demur. This was the
case in the first centuries of the relations between West and East, and the dawn of
modern times has seen the same course of events. These movements take place
almost rhythmically. They follow one another with a regularity which tempts one
to arrange in harmony with them the relations of the Chinese toward the Indian
Ocean. The whole character of the Chinese deterred them from navigating it on
their own initiative. They required the stimulus given by the circumstance that
the mariners of Western Asia, about the year 250 A. D. at the latest, gradually dis-
continued voyages to Kattigara, and contented themselves with seeking nearer
Sn HISTORY OF THE WORLD 593
ports. The threatened loss of trade compelled the Chinese to follow the barbarians
to the West. In the middle of the fourth century A. D. we find them at Penang
in the Malacca Straits. Toward the end of that century they reached for the
first time Ceylon, the only point outside the region of their native ocean which
had any great attraction for them. In Ceylon, however, they saw the germs of
that Buddhist doctrine which exercised the most powerful formative influence on
their own civilization. Not content with this goal, which they again and again
strove to reach, they came by the middle of the fifth century as far as the Persian
Gulf and the town of Hira on the Euphrates ; later we find them, if we may
believe Edrisi, even at Aden and other ports of the Eed Sea. The expeditions of
the Chinese to Persia and Mesopotamia ended about the year 700, while their
ships did not withdraw from Ceylon, which in this interval had developed into a
flourishing emporium between East and West, until the middle of the eighth
century.
(b) The Western Nations. — The seven centuries in which we first notice the
pendulum-like oscillations of Chinese maritime enterprise saw considerable changes
in the powers of Western Asia, by whom the trade with China was conducted.
Here too, as always in history, the Chinese were the permanent factor. Apart from
the people known in later times under the name of the Malays, who, by sharing in
the voyages to Ceylon, became important competitors with them in the second
period, the Chinese were for the whole time the undisputed bearers of the trade
directed toward the West. But in the West there were far-reaching revolutions.
There the Greco-Eoman trader was being ousted more and more by nations which,
although long settled on the borders of the Indian Ocean, had only just turned
their attention to sea traffic.
In the first place we must here mention the Indians themselves, who then,
perhaps for the first time in the course of their history, so uneventf ul in foreign
policy, ventured to any large extent upon the sea. We may form our own opinions
es to their share in the expeditions to Malacca and the Archipelago, but there is no
doubt that they did not passively look on at the splendid development of Western
trade which was taking place at their own gates.
By far the greater part of this trade passed into the hands of Persia, after the
powerful dynasty of the Sassanids (227-651) had raised that kingdom to the
rank of a great power. The ruling dynasty, with the insight of true statesmen,
had seen that in no way could more damage be inflicted upon the East Roman
Empire than by cutting off its direct trade with the Far East. In fact the Persian
nation, which we are apt to regard as ignorant of maritime matters, conceived the
magnificent plan of concentrating in its own hands the entire trade of West and
East. In spite of all its efforts it failed to carry out this purpose completely. It
only commanded one of the two sea routes leading from India to the West, that
across the Persian Gulf. Of this it soon gained absolute possession; and the
monopoly remained for a long time in its hands, for neither the Indians nor the
vigorous inhabitants of the kingdom of Hira (210-614), which, though small, was
highly important for the trade of that time, had any other route available. Like
the Persian ships themselves, the Indian and Arabian merchantmen sailed to
Ceylon, where they received the wares brought thither by Chinese junks, more
especially silk, cloves, aloes-wood, and sandal-wood, in order to carry them directly
VOL. II — 38
594 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter VI
across the Persian Gulf. On the other hand, the Persian dominion did not
extend, either at the time of the Sassanids or later, over the second route to
the West, that of the Red Sea. The traces, therefore, of Rome's former command
of the seas were preserved here the longest. The far-famed city of Berenice
Troglodytice flourished down to the fourth century; and even in the days of
Justinian the ships of the East Roman Empire sailed yearly from Klisma and
the ancient Elath to India. On economic grounds it had been the object of that
shrewd emperor from the beginning of his reign to make himself commercially
independent of the Persians. He succeeded in doing so by laud (although not
until 557 and after many failures), in so far that he was able to introduce into
his own empire, by the assistance of monastic cunning, the silk-growing which
was the most important matter of all (p. 149). Owing to the unusually firm posi-
tion of the Persians in the Euphrates valley all attempts to break through their
monopoly of the maritime trade on this, the shortest, route were always futile.
The Red Sea presented itself as the only avenue of approach to the Far East.
The small shipping industry of Klisma and Elath was quite unable to meet
the immense requirements of the luxurious Byzantine court as well as those
of the civilized world of the Mediterranean. Justinian looked for and found
geographically more favoured allies in the Ethiopians of the friendly Axumitic
kingdom, whose position at the entrance of the Indian Ocean as well as at that
of the Red Sea naturally suggested the transit trade. The attempt nevertheless
failed. Many Greek merchants indeed went down to Adulis, and actually crossed
over to India in Ethiopian ships ; and the dusky merchants certainly knew how
to set a due value on their role of agents, yet they did not succeed in impairing
the Persian monopoly to any appreciable extent. The Persians in the course of
centuries had established themselves too firmly in the Indian ports to be ousted by
the competition of an unadventurous and uninfluential people from the position
which they had laboriously acquired. Even storms of such violence as that which
the Islamitic movement of the seventh century brought with it were unable ta
shake the Persian trade with India. So far as the Indian Ocean is concerned, the
Persians seem rather to have derived fresh strength for further advances from every
new attack and shock.
4. FROM MAHOMET TO VASCO DA GAMA
IN history there is no such thing as continuous and unbroken progress ; periods-
of stagnation alternate with others in which every pulse beats faster under the
influence of some great movement or event. The effect of such alternations is not
confined to the continental peoples. Physical shocks and disturbances spread more
rapidly through a liquid than a solid medium ; and one might almost say that
the ocean is more favourable than adverse to the diffusion of the ideas and move-
ments which the great crises of history call into being.
What the western voyage of Columbus was for the Atlantic, or the descent of
Hal boa (p. 606) and the expedition of Magalhaes for the Pacific, the eastern voyage
of Yasco da Gama was for the Ocean, — an event, that is, of the most telling
importance for all succeeding time. But while those events in the history of the
first two oceans are unmatched for their far-reaching influence, the discovery of
Sr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 595
the way round the Cape does not stand alone in its importance for the Indian
Ocean. The pioneers of Europe found that they had been anticipated by Islam,
which in its whole life and being belongs to the Indian Ocean. On a victorious
march of incomparable swiftness it bore the flag of the prophet to the shores of
the Atlantic, and it touched the Pacific with its most eastern offshoots ; but only
in the region of the Indian Ocean did it attain a vigorous and unhindered develop-
ment of its strength, and, more important still, only there was it able to spread
over the surface of the ocean. It is not to be assumed that the Arabs set foot
upon the sea for the first time after the Hegira. Such a view is contradicted not
only by the migration by sea of the Ge'ez nations of South Arabia to the highlands
of Abyssinia but by the navigation of the peoples of Hira and Aden and by
many other facts. But at no period before Mahomet do we find in them even an
inclination to that deliberate oversea policy which is so characteristic of the Ara-
bian world during the whole age of the caliphs and later. It seems as if it was
only through Islam that the hitherto almost unknown people, when it became
a world conqueror on land, attained also the consciousness of its own powers
on the sea.
Four years after the prophet's death the Neo-Persian kingdom lay shattered on
the ground, struck down by the powerful hand of Omar. It almost seemed as
if, under the new conditions and in the warlike turmoil of that time, the Indian
Ocean would relapse into that state of insignificance from which it had only slowly
emerged in the course of the last few centuries ; for at this same time the rest of
Nearer Asia and even Egypt (641) fell a victim to the onslaught of the Moham-
medans. The Indian Ocean thus had become an Arabian sea ; from Suez and Mas-
sowah in the west as far as the Indus delta in the east its waves, at the time of the
Ommeiads and the Abbassids, beat on shores over which the caliphs ruled. In this
way the whole commerce of West with East, the world commerce of that day, lay
in the hands of the Arabs alone.
For the first time since the Indian Ocean has played a part in the authenticated
history of mankind the appearance of the Arabs on the scene compels the observer
to divide his field of view; In addition to the route from west to east, which
hitherto has been exclusively treated, one of the routes which passes through the
northern part of the ocean from north to south now claims serious consideration.
We have, in fact, to deal with the encroachment of the Arabs on the coast of East
Africa. It is on this particular region that the Arab people has longest asserted
its capacity of resistance against the world powers of modern days. Here, strange
to say, it has had to fight out its last conflict against the youngest colonial power
of the Old World, the newly united German Empire.
A. THE EAST
THE expansion of the Arabs toward the East during the age of the Caliphate
must still be regarded entirely from the standpoint of the reciprocal relations
between Eastern and Western Asia. Possessing a large number of the best har-
bours of the Indian Ocean, among them those which commanded the East Indian
trade, the Arabs saw themselves compelled to turn their attention more and more
to the sea, and primarily to the eastern ocean. At one time the invasion of
India was most practicable by this route. We find Arab fleets on the west coast of
596 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter vi
India as early as 637 ; but then it was imperatively necessary to deprive the Per-
sians, who even after the fall of the Sassanids were a formidable naval power, of
the supremacy in the Indian Ocean. The Arabs did not conquer India by the sea
route, nor did they succeed in driving out of the field the competition of the Per-
sians, in spite of the founding of Basra (Bassora, 636) and Bagdad (754), which
testifies to their political foresight and their knowledge of the geographical require-
ments of commerce. For more than two centuries their fleets ploughed the waters
of the Indian Ocean in peaceful harmony with the Persian merchantmen. During
the first decades of the Caliphate era this navigation followed the paths which had
been handed down to them from the Sassanid age. It did not go beyond Ceylon ;
at that time, indeed, the voyages of the Chinese still extended to the Persian Gulf.
About the year 700 Arabs and Persians, encouraged by improvements in ship-
building and the knowledge of the compass which they then probably acquired,
advanced boldly over the Bay of Bengal and reached the shores of China. In
correspondence to this forward movement and true to their custom of penetrating
only so far as was requisite for the maintenance of commercial intercourse, the
Chinese at once proceeded to narrow the extent of their voyages more and more.
In the first place they made Ceylon their terminus ; but about the middle of the
eighth century they abandoned that island, and by so doing disappeared completely
from the Indian Ocean for more than five hundred years. It was not given either
to the Persians or the Arabs during this long period to follow the Chinese over
the confines of the Indian Ocean to the great ocean adjoining Eastern Asia. After
one hundred and twenty thousand Mohammedans, Jews, Nestorians, and Magiaus
had been massacred at Khansu in 878, all further voyages beyond Malacca toward
the northwest were brought for ever to an abrupt termination. This concludes the
period of the most busy traffic which, with the one exception of the Mediterranean,
any considerable sea ever bore on its surface until the beginning of modern times.
The nature and extent of this traffic is best exemplified by the fact that an Arabian
writer of those days could speak of the Persian Gulf, which was the terminus and
starting-point of all the commerce at that day with the East, as the " Chinese sea."
One single large region of civilization presents itself to us here in the East. If
we compare with this the darkness which even in the Carolingian time rested over
the half-Christian, half-pagan lands of Europe, we understand what Oskar Peschel
meant when he asserted that the foci of the intellectual and material civilization
of that age lay south of latitude 40°, and farther to the east than any meridian of
the Mediterranean.
Although the Chinese held aloof, the Indian Ocean by no means became de-
serted. For even if the Pacific was closed to the Persians and Arabs in the
ensuing period, yet they found in Kalah, on the strait of Malacca, a place where
the trade with the Chinese could be transacted until these latter once more sought
out the old route to Ceylon and the ports of Malabar. This renewed advance of
the Chinese is the last of their rhythmic movements on the surface of the Indian
Ocean. It began in the second half of the thirteenth century, when Kubla Khan
gave a great stimulus to navigation. The ponderous junks of the Chinese, just as
in the second age, whose beginnings lay some nine hundred years back, once more
sailed in large fleets toward the west. Ceylon remained their terminus, as of old,
but the powerful and flourishing ports of Calicut and Ormuz became also the ob-
jects of their voyages. These were primarily intended for trade, without, however,
SffiS?] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 597
excluding other enterprises. The Chinese then attempted what they had never
previously done on the waters of the Indian Ocean, — they actually undertook one
voyage of discovery as far as Makdishu (East Africa), and in the first half of the
fifteenth century the monarchs of the Ming dynasty subjugated Ceylon. This was
the culminating point of Chinese activity in the Indian Ocean.
By the middle of the fifteenth century China disappeared again from the Indian
Ocean, and, this time, for ever. The attempts repeatedly made by the Chinese
during a period of more than one thousand years to remain in touch with the
nations of the West bore but little fruit, either for the East or West. But the
cause of this did not lie in the onesidedness of this purely commercial intercourse,
which, on the contrary, bore abundant fruit in the exchange of material as well as
intellectual culture, but rather in the excessive physical and psychical difference
between the races and peoples concerned, which inevitably hindered any real
fusion or assimilation of the two civilizations. During the whole of this period
the Australian continent remained the silent, inert boundary pillar which it had
been in remote antiquity. Even its north and northwest coasts, which were in
sufficiently close proximity to Indonesia to favour colonisation and the opening of
commerce, remained completely out of touch with the Indian Ocean.
On the other hand, the Malay people, which is characterised more than any
other in the eastern hemisphere by nautical spirit and capabilities, began at this
time to emerge from its previous obscurity. The voyages which the Malays
had undertaken at that early period, when the Chinese for the first time advanced
far beyond the straits of Malacca toward the west, were certainly not the first
in their history; but we possess no exact information on the subject. We can,
however, trace with tolerable clearness how the Western Archipelago, and Java
in particular, early came into certain relations with India. Brahmanism and
Buddhism had both found their way there. However momentous were the con-
sequences of the introduction of these two religions for the spiritual development
of this part of the Indonesian island-world, it was from reasons connected with
the nature of those doctrines that their influence had not the effect of inducing the
population of Indonesia to take in hand the tasks for the performance of which
it must have long felt itself qualified by skill in seamanship. It was only at the
moment when the Malays, from a correct appreciation of the narrowness of their
political and economic basis, withdrew from the island-world to the long since
abandoned mainland, that they acquired strength and opportunity to affect the
destinies of their seas. The founding of Singapore from the old empire of Men-
angkabau in 1160 is in fact the starting-point of their power, which in the course
of the next centuries extended to a large part of Indonesia, and found its most
conspicuous expression in the prosperity of Malacca, founded in 1252, through
which for many centuries the whole commerce from west to east passed.
An unkind dispensation ordained that the Malays should not succeed in
developing on a larger scale their hereditary nautical abilities. They had missed
the favourable moment. Hardly were they prepared for a more comprehensive
oversea policy, when the era dawned which revolutionised all the existing con-
ditions on the Indian Ocean, — the era of its opening up by the Europeans from
west to east. The Malays, it is true, were not, like the Persians and Arabs, com-
pletely banished from the eastern Indian Ocean ; they were too closely connected
with it for that ; but as the white conquerors encroached upon the Archipelago,
598 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter VI
the Malays ceased to be the pioneers of navigation, and were degraded into pirates.
Even before this, piracy had been greatly esteemed by the Malays, and it became
henceforth their almost exclusive occupation ; by this involuntary step the Malays
relinquished any historical role in the higher sense.
Only one feat on a larger scale was performed by the Malays within the limits
of the Indian Ocean ; this was their settlement of the large island of Madagascar.
This migration from their original homes in the Indian Archipelago is mainly
"prehistoric;" the dates assigned to it vary between the first and the twelfth
century A. D. The prehistoric darkness which then rested on the western Indian
Ocean can hardly have been absolutely unilluinined. But the achievements of the
ancients in this sphere have been lost ; all that had been explored and discovered
in the long period from the circumnavigation of Africa under King Necho to the
periplus of the Erythraean Sea, had fallen into oblivion during the later disturb-
ances, and had proved barren of results for the political and social development of
the human race.
B. THE WEST
(a) The Arabs. — The western coasts of the ocean even at this gloomy period
did not share the fate of the east side, which continued to be a complete blank, so
far as history is concerned. Although the Greek traders finally kept aloof, yet the
Arabs, who had early sailed from their emporiums in Yemen to the south, did not
cease, until past the second century A. D., to navigate energetically the east coast
of Africa, even far below the equator. Before the advent of the Prophet their
voyages were directed exclusively by commercial objects. But fully a century
after the Hegira the connection with the south, which was formerly only loose,
was drawn tighter; where previously simple factories had existed, one fortified
town after another now sprang up. Eound these towns were grouped kingdoms
of small size, it is true, but nevertheless able largely to influence and change
the nationality and customs, the religion and type, of the settled population.
Makdichu and Barawa, Malindi and Mombasa, but especially Kilwa-Kisiwani,
which nourished for many years, were the centres of these States, by whose main-
tenance for fully nine hundred years the Arab nation has given the most brilliant
proof of historical strength and permanence.
If we examine the causes which directed the attention of the Arabs to East
Africa, when their purpose was to change their oversea relations, which hitherto
had merely rested upon trade, into a deliberate policy of aggrandisement, we find
on the whole the same circumstances which, many centuries before, had induced
their ancestors to engage in that commercial intercourse. The naturally trifling
distance of the two countries from each other is shortened in an extraordinary
degree by the periodical monsoons, which the inhabitants of the northwest Indian
Ocean certainly utilised far earlier than their discovery and employment in the
Eoman age. An additional and perhaps decisive inducement to adopt a policy of
aggrandisement was given further by the character of the inhabitants of the
coast of Africa, who were incapable of competing with the intruders either on sea
or land. As a last motive we must take into consideration the fanciful views
entertained by the Arabs as to the position of Africa with respect to their own
country, and their ideas of the shape of the Indian Ocean as a whole.
SSn HISTORY OF THE WORLD 599
(b) The Results of the Errors of the Ptolemaic Cosmography, — Neither of the
other oceans was so early traversed by ships as the Indian Ocean ; but neither of
them has, strangely enough, waited so long before its shape and size were rightly
understood by mankind. The Pacific was only brought into the sphere of history
at the beginning of the sixteenth century ; but in less than two hundred and fifty
years its whole gigantic triangular shape has been thoroughly explored. Even
the Atlantic until the voyage of Columbus, or, if preferred, until the landing of
the Norsemen on the coasts of Finland, was a waste of water stretching indefi-
nitely toward the west, of which only the northerly east coast had become
part and parcel of history. But the process which lasted for centuries in the
case of the Pacific, continued only for decades in that of the Atlantic ; by the
beginning of the sixteenth century its channel-like form was known in its main
outlines. The case was otherwise with the Indian Ocean. The seafaring nations
of antiquity had already traversed it extensively ; Persians and Arabs had become
acquainted with it throughout its whole breadth from west to east ; yet down to
modern times its shape was completely misrepresented. The history of geography
has no more striking example of blind and mistaken guesswork to record. The
Indian Ocean was imagined to be an inland sea, a long, narrow channel, which
joining the Eed Sea, formed, as it were, a prolongation of the Mediterranean turned
toward the south. While the north shore of this marvellous basin is represented
by the south coast of Asia, it was supposed that the boundary on the south was
supplied by the continent of Africa. The east coast of Africa was twisted round
in early maps and made to run due east and west at its southern extremity, and to
join the south of Asia somewhere in the Far East.
This erroneous conception in its beginnings goes back to Eratosthenes and Hip-
parchus, indeed to Aristotle. It did not, however, become momentous for the his-
tory of mankind until it was perpetuated by Ptolemy, whose cosmographic system
was the main source of the geographical knowledge of the early Middle Ages. The
Arabs, the direct heirs of the great geographer, adopted without criticism his facts
and his blunders, and thus accepted the tradition that the Indian Ocean was an
inland sea, although the direction of the Somali and Zanzibar coast must have
been familiar to them. Their persistent belief in this shape of the Indian Ocean
can only be explained by a combination of various circumstances. For one thing,
Ptolemy was in high repute with them, chiefly in consequence of their lack of
cartographic talent. In the next place, as followers of the Ptolemaic system,
they supposed that the temperatures in the southern hemisphere at the season of
the northern winter, when the sun is nearest the earth, reached a height which
could not but be fatal to all living creatures. They therefore considered all laud
south of the equator to be uninhabitable, and the sea to be impracticable for navi-
gation. Consequently they were confirmed in the delusion that the coast, which
they had traversed as far down as Sofala, trended from west to east, and lay
directly opposite South Asia.
The Indian Ocean in this Ptolemaic shape became important for the history of
the human race in two ways. The one part of its role ended in the political achieve-
ments of the Arabs on the east coast of Africa, of which the extent was perhaps
conditioned not only by the causes already mentioned, but also by the very natural
desire of the conquerors to keep in touch witli the mother country. Apart from
these settlements the Indian Ocean is important for the fable of the Terra Australis,
600 HISTORY OF THE WORLD {chapter vi
the unknown southern land (cf. p. 253), with which it was associated. The idea
of this continent, mainly derived from Ptolemy, who gave the name of the Ethi-
opian Australia to the supposed southern shore of his laud-girdled Indian Ocean, was
taken up hy the Arabs, who gave the unknown laud the name of the Sendsh coast.
Then, partly through the agency of the Arabs, partly directly, the myth was
adopted into the geography of the scholastics, and at the close of a troublous, but
in many respects sterile, period remained as a problem which the Middle Ages had
acquired no claim to solve.
During the two millenniums and a half through which the Indian Ocean has
hitherto occupied our attention, it appears in fact merely as a prolongation of the
Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, as a narrow inland sea, whose southern coast, exist-
ing only in the imagination of the men of that time, formed an insuperable barrier
to any southward expansion. In reality the Indian Ocean of this whole period
almost always coincides with the sea of Ptolemy. If it ever goes beyond those
limits, that occurs only to a restricted degree and in a quite definite direction, as,
for example, in the southern voyages of the Arabs. The opening up of larger por-
tions either remains reserved for the civilized world, as happened in the southwest
expeditious of the Chinese, or it lies from the first outside the field of authenticated
history, as is the case with the migration of the Malays to Madagascar.
Although it was a mere fancy to think of the Indian Ocean as an inland sea,
still its influence in history has practically corresponded to its imagined character.
It did prove an insuperable barrier between the imperfectly developed civilizations
which bordered on it. In early times, when the history of mankind even in this
region was nothing more than a series of race migrations, it was simply avoided by
a de'tour ; later, men sailed along the coasts from harbour to harbour, or let them-
selves be driven by the monsoon eastward or westward. The direction of the
circles of latitude is almost the only historical axis of the ancient Indian Ocean
which comes before us. With the exception of the voyages to Sendsh and Sofala the
whole intercourse takes this direction, from the enterprises of the Phoenicians in
the second millennium B. c., down past the Greeks and Eomans, the Persians and
Arabs, to the last expeditions of the Chinese, whose aim was Ceylon, in the middle
of the fifteenth century. One-sided as was this intercourse, — except for a few
journeys undertaken by the Chinese from religious motives and the warlike expe-
ditions of the Arabs against India, which stand by themselves, it was invariably
devoted to purposes of trade, — it showed itself important for the development
of the civilization of mankind.
In this exchange of the products of civilization between the East and the West,
the latter was always the recipient, the former the giver. And for the last third of
the period which we have surveyed the exchange was effected merely by the
agency of West Asiatic peoples, by the Persians, and more particularly by the
Arabs. At the moment when these latter swept forward from insignificance into
the position of a political and intellectual world-power, the old direct connection
between the sphere of Mediterranean culture and that of South and East Asia was
snapped. Whether it is a question of obtaining rare spices, dyes, or luxuries, or of
the introduction of the Indian system of numerals, or of the widening of the
knowledge of medicine and mathematics, of geography and astronomy, the result
is always the same ; the nations that command the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
are inevitably the agents. As a matter of fact the Indian Ocean after the seventh
J/dSSSCSr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 601
or eighth century bears the stamp of a purely Asiatic sea, with possibly a faint
African admixture.
While the Arabs held the key to the Indian Ocean, it stood to the white races
in the same relation as did the Pacific before the commencement of European
exploration. Like the Pacific, the Indian Ocean was entirely removed from the field
of vision of the western civilized nations ; it required to be rediscovered and opened
up no less than its great and virgin neighbours. That the opening up of the two
oceans took place about the same time, simultaneously also with the lifting of the
gloom which rested on the Atlantic, was partly the result of accidents, but much
more due to the internal development of the western nations. But in each of the
oceans the work of exploration ran a different course ; for this diversity the facts
of physical geography are responsible.
5. MODERN TIMES
THE same seismic or tidal wave which crosses the Pacific Ocean may cause
the waters of the Indian and even of the Atlantic oceans to surge and swell;
the same molecule of water which, in consequence of differences in gravity, changes
its position and to-day moves from the Antarctic to the Pacific, can through similar
causes traverse at a subsequent time the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic. Physi-
cally, therefore, the ocean that encircles the earth is a unity ; but to the view
of history it appears divided, for it is a " function of its shores." If many of the
small inland seas, round which few nations dwell, have their own peculiar his-
torical expression, how much more must large but sharply defined features stand
out in the case of the mighty oceans, surrounded by whole races ! Each of the
three oceans appears in fact as a personality, an individual, in the frame of the
history of mankind. This peculiarity is subject to one limitation common to
them all : it is a thing of the past. To the men of to-day the difference between
the physical and the historical ocean is no longer familiar. As the waves of the
one ocean mingle freely with those of the other, so the currents of world com-
merce, and also of world history, flow unchecked from one to the other. Both
indeed move on specially favoured paths, but these paths encircle the whole globe ;
they cross the seas in the direction which each man chooses, the essential feature
of true international commerce.
A. FROM VASCO DA GAMA TO THE BEGINNING OF THE BRITISH RULE
IN INDIA (1498-1757)
FOUR hundred years have sped past since this change in the character of the
oceans — not in men's ideas about them — was completed, a short span of time
compared with the millenniums that preceded. They have brought infinitely
much to the Atlantic as well as to the Pacific, to each certainly more than to the
Indian Ocean ; nevertheless, the sum total of the historical importance of the two
former is not greater than that of the latter. In their case also a new era begins
with the European voyages of discovery ; but they had no great memories from
the past to revive. All the maritime life of its own which the Pacific Ocean pre-
viously possessed either played its part on the northwestern margin, a minute field
in comparison with the entire surface, or, as the influence of the Polynesians,
602 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter VI
it fell outside the limits of the rest of man's history. The greater part of the
Atlantic Ocean, on the other hand, was not yet roused to historical life; only
the northeast, with its splendid configuration and the incomparable lateral basins,
the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the North Sea, had long been active, and lay
waiting for the appointed moment to flood the globe with its teeming population,
which centuries and tens of centuries of civilization had steeled for the work of
discovery and conquest. Even the Indian Ocean before the dawning of the new
age had long ceased to be historically important throughout its whole expanse ;
the great south lay indeed quite fallow. Nevertheless the narrow northern mar-
gin, with which alone we are concerned, must be regarded from other aspects than
the corresponding parts of the two neighbouring seas. The sphere of the Mediter-
ranean civilization is as much a world by itself as the East Asiatic sphere. Sepa-
rated from each other by a full third of the earth's circumference, they are two
powers which are in spirit absolutely different, but which, consciously or uncon-
sciously, perpetually tend to approach and come in close contact one with the
other. The gigantic continent of Asia, from its size, was not adapted to help this
process ; a promising attempt, when Home established connections with China in
the year 95 A. D., produced no results. The needed pathway was supplied by
the waters of the Indian Ocean, and their function has been to link the East and
West together.
(a) The Importance of the Independent Advance of the White Race into the
Indian Ocean. — Further than this, the Indian Ocean produced a civilization of
its own, which, though not so unyielding and vast as that of Eastern Asia nor so
varied as that of the Mediterranean, possesses the peculiarity of comprising the
entire ocean so far as it concerns the history of mankind at all. Spread by the
teaching of the Prophet, it reaches almost without a gap from shore to shore,
from the east coast of Africa in the west to the islands of the Archipelago in
the Far East. Accordingly the inroad of the white race, on the development of
whose culture it had so long exercised a successful influence, bears here a quite
different significance from that which the dissemination of the Europeans had for
the virgin waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific. These latter could in the end
only win by it ; the Indian Ocean, on the contrary, had much to lose. This is the
standpoint from which the Indian Ocean must be regarded after the voyage of
Vasco da Gama. To the superficial observer the destinies of the three oceans are
completely similar. No one of them was able permanently to escape the influence
of the white man. Even the Indian Ocean shared this fate, to a greater extent
indeed than its eastern neighbour. Yet a great difference exists between the final
results. The Atlantic and the Pacific, just as the Indian Ocean, lost at first some
part of their own civilization ; in America and Australia the spark of indigenous
culture was completely extinguished. Everywhere, however, this temporary set-
back was only the prelude to an era of vigorous development in new directions.
The value of the history which the immigrants in the United States and in Aus-
tralia had made in an astonishingly brief period far outweighs the former losses.
With the Indian Ocean the matter from the very first lay distinctly otherwise.
If we exclude extra-tropical South Africa, its surface washes no country which has
ever served as the goal for a mass emigration of Europeans. Even at the present
day the white man, according to numbers, is a completely insignificant factor com-
Sr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 603
pared with the mass of natives, whether in the Archipelago, in India, or on the
shores of East Africa. Three or four hundred years ago, in the early days of colo-
nial activity, this disparity of numbers was certainly still more marked. Under
these circumstances there could naturally be no idea of a complete destruction of
the native civilizations, such as America experienced in those days, and of substi-
tuting in their place a constitution taken from the mother country in Europe.
Such an idea lay as much outside the range of possibility as, for example, the
eradication of the East Asiatic culture. The question could at most be that of
destroying the economical and political strength of all opponents ; and, unfortu-
nately, the white man down to the present day has to regard every inhabitant of
the Indian Ocean as such. The European was successful in both methods; for
the opposition which Bali and Acheh, Madagascar and Arabian East Africa, had
offered, even in our days, is like the last convulsions of a dying man. As might
be expected from the dissimilarities of the nations, the struggle has assumed various
shapes in different places and times ; a handful of traders was able to crush a
giant of clay like India, while the above-named branches of the Malays still defy
the foreign yoke.
One is tempted at first sight to say that the opposition of the maritime nations
to the white invader has been more determined than that of nations living inland
or neglecting to use the sea. But such a generalisation must be qualified by ex-
ceptions so important as to rob it of nearly all its value. It is true that the Aztecs
and Peruvians succumbed to the onslaught of the whites still more feebly than the
Indians ; but China, in spite of many storms, still stands unshaken in any respect.
On the other side, the opposition was nowhere slighter than from the Polynesians ;
the distribution of a sparse population over an immense area from the very first
prevented any war being waged. Again, the geographical conditions of India and
Indonesia are similar on both the east and west; yet their dealings with the
white races have been of the most different description. So far as the Indies are
concerned, we must abandon the idea of treating the ocean as an important influence
on the course of history. It is in the facts of religious and political development
that we must seek for the reason why, in India proper, native civilisation succumbed
to the slightest shock from without, while in Indonesia it found a safe refuge.
The Indian Ocean at that critical period of transition was not, however, quite
unimportant for India. The States of the Malabar coast, under the influence of
the brisk Arabian-Egyptian trade with the Eed Sea, had aspired, toward the close of
the fifteenth century, to create fleets of their own. These, with the constant help
of Arabian warships, played an important part in the desperate struggle against
the Portuguese invaders. It was not until the last ship of their own was destroyed
that the resistance of the Indians began to flag. The Arabs alone of all the natu-
ral defenders of the Indian Ocean made some attempt to meet their responsi-
bilities ; for the Malays, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, were not
sufficiently identified with the soil which they had only occupied a few generations
earlier. They were also too few in numbers, and were scattered over so wide an
area of islands that their resistance could not have proved permanently successful
against the flood of Europeans which swept on simultaneously from east and west
against their homes. It was due simply and solely to their seamanship, which
enabled them to inflict great damage, especially by piracy, on the white intruders,
that they could continue the war within certain limits for centuries.
604 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
The case of the Arabs was different at the time when Vasco da Gama, after
his memorable voyage to Calicut, set foot 011 the soil of India; they represented
the dominant religion of the Indian Ocean, and possessed the monopoly of com-
mercial intercourse so far as it connected the Indian world with the West. Not
merely did the fabulous prosperity of Cairo and Alexandria, the power of Venice,
Genoa, and Pisa, of Barcelona and Florence, the splendour, in short, of the Mediter-
ranean world of those times, rise and fall with this trade, but the economic life of
Northern Europe as far as Germany and Flanders was materially affected by it.
The whole West indeed between 1200 and 1500 lay under the spell of the trade
with India. The assured prospect of enormous profits therefrom had once led the
citizens of the Italian republics to vigorous co-operation in the crusades, and, long
after that remarkable period, the prizes of the Indian trade exercised a magnetic
fascination both on individuals and on peoples in the West. The face of Europe
was then turned to the East far more markedly than it was from the sixteenth cen-
tury onward to the West. Hence came the excitement, almost incomprehensible
to us, which mastered all the western peoples, whenever there was a prospect that
the narro\v entrances to the Indian Ocean, the commercial routes of the Persian
Gulf or the Red Sea, would be closed or hedged about with new obstacles.
(b) The Struggle for the Supremacy in the Indian Ocean. — At the moment of
the landing of Vasco da Gama the Arabs recognised the desperate danger which
threatened their supremacy. In the succeeding period their resistance to the in-
truders was more obstinate and lasting than that offered by the natives of India,
who were unfamiliar with the sea. Even the Osmans, who in 1517 by the con-
quest of Egypt had entered upon the heritage of the Mamelukes, knew perfectly
well that Egypt was worthless to them unless they possessed complete liberty of
movement on the Indian Ocean. This truth was, however, first brought home to
them by the Venetians and Genoese, who lost their main source of prosperity with
the interruption of the Levantine trade. The attempts, accordingly, of the Turks
to regain that liberty of movement were less persistent than would have been
desirable in the interests of all the Mediterranean States. Far from overthrowing
the power of the Portuguese, they were not even able to break through the block-
ade of the Ked Sea, which the new-comers maintained for some decades. The
Red Sea therefore relapsed temporarily into the condition of a backwater ; at the
same time the heavy hand of the Turk, spreading death everywhere, fell on its
northern exit.
Politically speaking, the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, and for the greater part of the nineteenth, was no thoroughfare. The Dutch,
it is true, followed the tracks of the Portuguese as far as Japan ; but the east coast
of Asia was still too closely guarded against intruders to allow that vigorous com-
petition of the European colonising nations which characterises the northwest of
the Pacific Ocean at the present day. Such competition was to be found at that
day more on the coasts and on the surface of the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese
had accustomed themselves for more than a century to regard it as their own
sea. For while the famous bull of Alexander VI, limiting Spanish enterprise
to the lands and seas west of the Azores, had been withdrawn in the very year
when it was issued, still Portugal and Spain had, within a few years of this
abortive attempt at demarcation, come to an agreement in which the principle
Sr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 605
of the papal judgment was recognised, and the New World was partitioned
between these, the two greatest maritime and colonising powers of the age, by
the tracing of an imaginary frontier to the west of the Cape Verde Islands (cf.
p. 451). The post-Columbian age did away with this, as with so many other ideas.
Just as the Spaniards could not hold the Pacific, so the Portuguese were still
less able to close the Indian Ocean to the pushing new colonial powers, since
these latter, now realising their importance, advanced almost simultaneously and
in dense masses. We now come to the age of the " mare liberum," the freedom
of the oceans (Vol. VII, p. 89). In colonial history between 1600 and 1850
we hear of no considerable region, except the sea of Central America, which was
more obstinately contested than the border lands and islands of the Indian Ocean.
And as if it were not enough that the European nations should rush forward to
secure for themselves the heritage of Portugal, the Arabs from Muscat stepped
vigorously on the scene after 1660, and after eighty years of war wrested once
more the central coast of East Africa from the detested European.
The place of the Indian Ocean in the history of the world is variously illus-
trated in the numerous stages of this competition. Until past the middle of the
eighteenth century, the trading nations were intent, with equal zeal but unequal
success, on securing their small settlements on its shores and islands. National
interests were represented in the struggle by a series of small trading companies,
among which we even find one, the Ostend company, of German origin. In the
reign of the empress Maria Theresa there was an attempt to found a German
colony in Delagoa Bay.
This international competition ends at the moment when the political equi-
librium was disturbed in favour of England, under whose dominion it was now des-
tined to pass for the whole succeeding period. This disturbance was produced by
an occurrence, in itself unimportant, which in its later developments has marked
the whole subsequent history of the ocean and the surrounding countries, — the
first acquisition of territory in India by Britain. If we bear in mind that from
1498 to past the middle of the eighteenth century the political activity of the
European powers was spent on the founding of mere factory colonies, which could
not secure to any of the participating nations a broad economic basis or any su-
premacy, we may see in Robert Clive's decisive victory at Plassey, on June 23, 1757
(p. 463), the beginning of a new era both for India and for the Indian Ocean.
(c) The Indian Ocean as Part of the Universal Ocean. — With the discovery of
the two sea routes to India the historical centre of gravity in the Indian Ocean also
had been considerably displaced, but in an easterly direction, unlike that of the
Atlantic, which moved steadily toward the west. We have here the beginning of
the modern system of trade routes, and of the process, now slowly ripening to com-
pletion, by which the centre of gravity of international relations has moved toward
the Pacific. Henceforth we have hardly to reckon with the northwest of the In-
dian Ocean, which had been for more than two thousand years the scene of so
much political activity (Vol. I, p. 594). It was too remote for a commerce which,
shifting its roads to the high sea, quickly forgot the narrow corners in which it
had hitherto moved.
Now at length we reach the period when it is possible to speak of the ocean as
an undivided whole, of which the several oceans are no more than segments artifi-
606 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter n
cially distinguished by geographers, and of which every part lies open to all the
imvul powers. Henceforth there is no such thing as a mare clausum ; and if in
some waters the balance of power is always shifting, it is never undisputed. One
competitor for maritime ascendancy gains ground, another drops out of the race, but
there is no part of the ocean which one power can treat as its monopoly. The
change is one which dates from the sixteenth century. In the early part of that
century the Portuguese monopolised the Indian Ocean, the Spaniards the Pacific.
But the heritage of Spain has now been divided between England, Holland, France,
Russia, Germany, Japan, and the United States. The first three of these nations
have also invaded the Indian Ocean ; and here they have had as imitators or as
rivals the Arabs, the Germans, the Italians. The colonial empire of Portugal in
the East has virtually disappeared ; and no one power has inherited the Portuguese
ascendancy in its full extent.
So far there is nothing singular in the history of the Indian as distinct from
other oceans. What is singular is the dependence of the Indian upon the Pacific
Ocean, — a dependence which was felt long before the civilized world learnt of the
existence of the Pacific. The Pacific was an unknown sea to the white races until
Balboa in the second decade of the sixteenth century descended from the heights
of Darien to the southern sea (Vol. I, pp. 362, 585). Then first amazed Europe
learnt that the newly discovered country was not the eastern coast of Asia, but
that between it and the long-sought-for Cathay and Zipangu a new waste of waters
lay, on whose extent the third decade was first to throw light by the expedition of
Magelhaes. Before, however, the Spaniards approached the solution of the Pacific
question from the east, the Portuguese had taken the first steps toward it by the
expeditions which they had sent for the last hundred years in order to find out the
route to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Neither India itself nor any other
definite district of the Western Indian Ocean was the real goal of the Portuguese
mariners. Just as the discoveries of the Spaniards were bound up with the search
for the presence of the precious metals, so the Portuguese expeditions were guided
by the wish to reach the lands which produced spices and drugs. From this
point of view the Portuguese colonies, both in Nearer and Further India, as well
as on the east coast of Africa, were nothing more than stations on the dangerous
route to the Spice Islands.
These efforts to reach the East across the Indian Ocean did not cease with the
Portuguese. It is true, as we have seen, that their successors, the Dutch, British,
French, and Danes, in the two centuries following the fall of the Portuguese colo-
nial empire, attached primary importance to the maintenance of their possessions
acquired in the Indian Ocean ; but, besides this, the entire civilized world of Europe
was occupied with the solution of a problem which, beginning on the surface of the
Indian Ocean, drifted immediately eastward. This task is the search for the un-
known southern land, the Terra Australis incognita. Although this creation of
the fancy was exorcised from the south of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean
through the circumnavigation of Africa, only a few decades elapsed before it again
appeared. In the Indian Ocean the Terra Australis was then supposed to lie in
latitudes not far removed from those to which it had been referred by Hipparchus,
who imagined Ceylon to be the northernmost point of this fabulous land. Accord-
ingly, the efforts to reveal the position, situation, shape, and size of the southern
land — efforts which belong to all three oceans — were most vigorously prosecuted
?ffi2i£?sssr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD GOT
there. They commence with the voyages of Abel Tasman (1642-1643 and 1644),
and end with James Cook's famous circumpolar voyage, 1772-1775. The former
removed the phantom, at least for the Indian and Western Pacific, beyond the forty-
fifth degree of southern latitude ; but the latter absolutely destroyed it after it had
disfigured the map of the world for two thousand years. Then for the first time
some complete idea of the hydrography of the earth could be entertained, since an
approximately correct notion of the distribution of land and water had been formed.
The scientific establishment of these conditions exercised an important effect on
the course of the world's history. The Southern Indian Ocean and the Australian
seas then for the first time became serviceable to men, and New Holland was
roused into historic life. Australia, opened to colonisation, began a new career,
which may end by securing to the youngest continent the political and economic
headship in the whole southern hemisphere.
B. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY IN INDIA TO THE
CUTTING OF THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ (1757-1859)
THE beginning of the age which started with the victory of Plassey was inaug-
urated, first by the Peace of Paris of February 10, 1763, when that very France,
to which a Dupleix had opened out such glittering prospects, renounced for ever
the possession of India and consequently the supremacy in the Indian Ocean;
and next by the dissolution of the French East India Company in 1770. In this
way the only European rival whom England had then to consider was finally
driven from the field. England could now look to the realisation of her aim,
which was to impress on the Indian Ocean the stamp of a British sea, — of a cen-
tral sea, that is, round which the Asiatic, African, and Australian branches of the
British world-empire might cluster. Gigantic as this beginning must have appeared
to the eighteenth century, yet it was actually realised a hundred years after the
withdrawal of the French from India. Immediately before the opening of the
Suez Canal England did not, it is true, possess all the shores of the Indian Ocean ;
but there was no power which could dispute her supremacy single-handed.
The historical importance of the Indian Ocean during those hundred years
culminates in the fact that it then was mainly sought and won for its own sake ;
it was only after the opening up of East Asia that it sank more and more into the
position of a thoroughfare. The activity of its indigenous population, although
it was not less vigorous than in the foregoing age, recedes into the background
as compared with that of the invaders from outside. The theatre of events lay
now, as earlier, exclusively 011 the west coast of the ocean, and it ended in the
founding and growth of the sultanate of Zanzibar, the keystone to the fabric of
politics and civilization raised by the Arabs in the Indian Ocean. Hardly was the
structure completed, when it cracked in every joint. While the ocean previously
had been a remote gulf, with one single approach far down at the Cape, it was
brought, through the artificial strait of Suez, far nearer to the section of mankind
which required expansion ; and in place of the Latin nations, which, dogged as
they were, had grown weary from the colonising work of centuries, the fresh and
resolute Teuton stepped forward. Before the onrush of Britons and Germans the
Moslem bulwark, laboriously reared by the work of a millennium at the eastern
entrance to the Dark Continent, rapidly fell to the ground.
608 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
The inroads from without were then less restricted in their sphere of action.
It is true that they only had two starting-points ; but one of these at least was a
base commanding the whole area of the Indian Ocean. These two points are India
in the north, and the mainland of Australia in the southeast, of the Indian Ocean.
If we reflect on the relative position of the two countries and to Europe, the pos-
session of New Holland seems far from secure, unless India is simultaneously held,
while on the other side the possession of India in no way implies that of the fifth
continent. The acquisition and utilisation of Australia by the British really resulted
from motives which have not the slightest connection with their Indian policy.
Amongst other things, the coast of Australia which faces the Indian Ocean only
experienced the first essays at colonisation in 1829, forty years after the landing in
Botany Bay. The uninviting aspect of Western Australia is a partial, not a com-
plete, explanation of this fact ; it certainly would have been no hindrance to settle-
ments if political necessities had required this coast as a base from which to
control the Indian Ocean. Yet, even with the undue preference given to its eastern
coast, Australia largely influenced the Indian policy of Great Britain. It is, geo-
graphically and historically, from the day of its discovery onward, an indivisible
whole, and its connection with the Old World was bound to be closer than that
of the Pacific coasts and islands, if only for the reason that it is less remote than
they are from the original home of the white races. Thus Australia has ever since
1788 been a weighty factor in the Indian policy of Great Britain. Its interests
have been bound up with those of the British possessions in India ; and the vast
accession of territory which was entailed by the colonisation of Australia has dis-
tinctly increased the vigour and persistence of English policy in this part of the
globe.
The establishment of her position in India has marked out for England a defi-
nite road by which to maintain communications with her Australian colonies ; she
must endeavour to protect the approach at all possible points, as well as to com-
mand the surface of the adjacent sea. The Portuguese and Dutch, even the
French, had already tried to do so. The Portuguese had laid their hands on nu-
merous parts of the west coast of Africa, from Madeira and Arguin in the north
as far as Benguela in the south, and had also made bases on the east coast from
Sofala to Makdishu and Socotra. The Dutch, with better discernment, made the
southern extremities of Africa and India, the Cape of Good Hope (1602 and 1652),
and Ceylon (1602-1796) the centre of their system of defence, and at the same
time took care to occupy Mauritius (1598-1710) and Delagoa Bay (1721). For
France finally the islands, Madagascar and its neighbours, were intended to pro-
tect the road to India, at least in the south of the Indian Ocean. The British
were far from following in these steps directly after the beginning of their Indian
sovereignty ; on the contrary, for decades St. Helena was still reckoned as a sutti-
cient base on the long route round the Cape. Even the first occupation of Cape
Colony (1795-1802), which was merely the result of jealousy of the French, had
not yet opened the eyes of English ministers to the value of South Africa for the
Indian Ocean ; they would hardly otherwise have given it back to the Batavian
Republic. It was only the agitation of keen-sighted politicians like Kichard
\\Vllesley, who as far back as 1798 had clearly expressed his opinion that India
was untenable without the Cape, and still more the attacks on the British colonial
empire, executed or planned, by Napoleon I, which brought about this resolution.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD 609
England therefore in 1806, rapidly anticipating the intentions of Napoleon to
occupy the Cape, planted her foot once more, and this time finally, on South Africa.
This step decided the whole further course of events on the Indian Ocean. England
is now supreme not only at the apex of the great inland sea, but also at the corner
pillars at its base. In this way she has not only acquired an impregnable defensive
position, but she, beyond all other nations, is in the position to guide the destinies
of this ocean.
There have been at all times numerous attempts to shatter the British supre-
macy. These began with the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon, and his plan, which
we have just mentioned, for the conquest of the Cape ; they were continued in the
Treaty of Vienna of 1815, in which England was required to give back a large part
of the French and Dutch colonies, which she had taken away between 1810 and
1814, and were repeated more feebly in the perpetual efforts of France to make
Madagascar the starting-point of a new Indian policy. Napoleon's expedition to
Egypt, which undoubtedly would have attained the desired end, had France been
a match for England by sea, must be considered as comparatively the most event-
ful of these operations. But its results were very different from what had been
anticipated. It reminded England of the vulnerable point in her position; and
from this time English policy was naturally guided by the hope of securing the
Ked Sea. Great events throw their shadows before, even in the history of the seas.
The plan of cutting the isthmus of Suez was mooted during Napoleon's stay in
Egypt, and was never again allowed to drop. The repose in which the Eed Sea
had been left for three hundred years was rudely shattered now that the interest
of Europe was concentrated on it. It became apparent that direct communications
were to be reopened between the Mediterranean and the Far East. Once more
the attention of the colonial powers was concentrated on the northwest corner of
the Indian Ocean. In 1839 the English occupied Aden, the emporium at the
entrance to the Red Sea which had flourished in the old days of sailing-ships. At
the moment when the construction of the canal could no longer be prevented, she
firmly planted herself on Perim in the straits of Bab el Mandeb (1857), and almost
at the same time included in her dominion the Persian Gulf.
G. THE PKESEXT DAY (AFTER 1859)
(a) The Construction of the Suez Canal and its Results. — The expedition of
Napoleon had shown England how insecure her Indian possessions were, so soon
as France or any other power set foot in Egypt. Accordingly, after the battle of
the Pyramids (July 21, 1798), the chief object of her Indian policy was necessarily
to prevent such a contingency, or even any political and economic strengthening of
the country. There was no difficulty in carrying out this purpose, so long as the
plan of the Suez Canal was still in the germ, and England continued to hold the
undisputed sovereignty of the seas which she had won during the Revolutionary
and Napoleonic wars. But later, as the plan of the canal assumed more definite
shape, and the other powers, who had gained strength in the interval, once more
advanced on to the seas, this sovereignty became more difficult, but at the same
time more important. Lord Ellenborough was therefore justified in saying that
England, if she wished to secure the supremacy of the world, must stand with
one foot in India and the other in Egypt. Lord Palmerston privately informed
VOL. n — 39
610 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter VI
r.mnt Ferdinand de Lesseps that if England was allowed to occupy
permanently with an army and to superintend the traffic in the canal, he and
Kngland would be willing to aid the enterprise in every way (1855-1858) ; but it was
found possible to complete the canal (1869) without this great concession. How-
ever, English policy soon found the means of making the canal a source of strength
instead of weakness to her colonial empire. In 1875 Lord Beacoustield seized the
opportunity of the Khedive Ismail's pecuniary embarrassments to purchase his
shares in the canal. The rebellion of Arabi Pasha afforded an unexpected oppor-
tunity of taking a still further step. Half against the will of the ministry of the
moment, England crushed the revolt and effected the occupation of Egypt (1882).
The great problem was thus solved ; the way to the Indian Ocean as well as
to the Pacific had become an English road. But at the same time the occupa-
tion of the old country of the Pharaohs brought Great Britain face to face with a
new task, that of flanking the Indian Ocean by an Africa which was English
from Capetown to the Nile.
The opposition of England to the construction of the Suez Canal is intelligible,
when we consider her historical position during the first five or six decades of the
nineteenth century and the geographical conditions of the country in question.
England's intention, of which Lesseps was informed by Palmerston, was to retain
the monopoly of the world's trade and the supremacy on every sea. Both these
objects had their starting-point and their foundation, as determined by the course
of history, in the Indian Ocean, which at that period was in fact an English sea.
Although England could only anticipate that the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez
would bring her immense profits by the noteworthy shortening of the sea route to
India, yet she could not on the other hand disguise from herself the fact that this
entrance from the Altantic Ocean stood open to others besides herself, and would
attract foreign competitors to a degree which could not yet be estimated. Such
competition was hardly worth considering when the long route round the Cape was
in use ; but with the new road, which placed the once so distant East at the very
doors of every people, it was only too much to be dreaded. Hence the obstinate
resistance, continued by every possible expedient for decades, against the realisa-
tion of the plan. When England ultimately resigned herself to the inevitable, she
had probably gained sufficient confidence in her own political capabilities to feel sure
of resisting all competition, even under the new conditions. England had not
deceived herself in these expectations. One error only had slipped into her calcu-
lations. She had omitted to take into account the always inseparable connection
of economic and political interests in modern times. A classic example of this was
seen in the Indian Ocean when Germany and Italy, the two new powers mainly
to be considered, advanced after 1884 from merely economic activity to a political
scheme of colonisation on the hitherto neglected western coast of that sea.
The opening of the new waterway brought with it also a mass of new results
for mankind in general and for the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean in partic-
ular. This latter now not only developed itself into one of the most crowded
thoroughfares, but awoke slowly to a new life of its own, which in its most
vigorous i'orm stirred the Italians to oversea expansion. But still more wide
were the effects of the completion of the Suez Canal on the Indian Ocean and the
commerce of the world. The numerous routes which ran from the Cape of Good
Hope to the north and northwest were suddenly deserted, except by a few sailing-
5M«£?SSr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 611
ships. On the other hand, the few routes which traversed the new commercial
highway in the first years after its opening have been multiplied and differ-
entiated ; there are, at the present day, numbers of trunk lines which converge upon
Port Said and diverge again from Aden eastward. The opening up of Australia
and Madagascar has done something to restore the importance of the older routes.
But old and new alike have the Pacific for their ultimate objective. The Indian
Ocean at the present day has again become an anteroom to its larger neighbour.
In addition to the enormous commerce which the Indian Ocean of the present
day transmits from Europe to the Pacific and in the reverse direction, the Indian
Ocean has also some political developments to show, which are the result of indi-
genous development. There is of course nothing of the historical activity of early
settled nations to be noticed at the present time, when the sultanate of Zanzibar
and the empire of the Hovas have been blotted out from the list of States. But,
in compensation, Britons and Germans, French and Italians, have so firmly rooted
themselves on the coasts and the surface of the Indian Ocean, that we may now
venture to speak of Europeans being domiciled there, and may regard their activity
as being that of peoples native to this region.
(6) The Consolidation of the British Supremacy in the Indian Ocean by the
Capetown- Cairo Policy. — England endeavoured in other ways to retrieve the
losses which she had thus sustained. In 1866 she acquired British East Africa,
a territory precisely equidistant between Cape Colony and Egypt. The idea of
a junction of these three provinces must naturally have forced itself upon men's
minds, especially since between them, on the south coast of the Gulf of Aden,
on the Zambesi, on the Nyassa, and in the important Zanzibar Archipelago, at
the same time or a little later, opportunities were offered for the expansion of
the British power. The magnificent idea of an Africa which, on its eastern side at
all events, shall be British from the Cape to the mouths of the Nile, loses some of
its audacity under these circumstances ; but it has been keenly taken up in Eng-
land and has already approached its realisation. This idea alone caused the
masters of Egypt to give Mahdism its well-deserved quietus on September 2,
1898, before Orndurman. In order to realise it the English have crushed the
Matabele empire, and have moved their frontiers far beyond the Zambesi to
the north. For its sake they are constructing through Africa a railroad system
which not only testifies to economic sagacity, but by means of its northern
branches, the Nile Valley and the Uganda railways, makes England independent
of the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, in the event of these being blocked by a
hostile fleet. In fact, combined with other motives, it led also to the defeat of the
Boers. The Boers, it is true, were more African than the negroes, since they
have never struggled, like these at least, to reach the sea, and so far could not dis-
turb Great Britain by sea ; but as a land power England was bound to remain
defective on the Indian Ocean so long as the two Boer republics existed.
(c) The Northern and Northeastern Indian Ocean. — During the last thirty
or fifty years the north and the northwest of the Indian Ocean have also attained
an increased importance as the thoroughfare to the East at the moment when
East Asia, violently roused from its lengthened seclusion, was opened to the enter-
prise of the European. England here, too, was victorious. At the first dawn of
612 HISTORY OF THE WORLD [chapter vi
this period (1824) she laid her grasp upon the Straits of Malacca, with Singapore,
Malacca, and Pulo Peuang. Since that time the Indian Ocean, so far as it comes
into the question of modern world commerce, bears in that part, notwithstanding
the extensive possessions of the Dutch, an English stamp.
In conclusion, the last act of this drama lies mostly in the womb of time. It
brings us into contact with a nation which has often occupied our attention on the
Pacific (Vol. I, p. 593), but which apparently has no right to meet us here, — the
Russian nation. And yet their appearance on the Pacific implies their movement
toward the Indian Ocean. If Russia wishes not to be stifled in the enormous expanse
of her Asiatic possessions, if she wishes to guide the unwieldy mass, she must
force a way to the nearest sea ; her East Asiatic coast is in every respect insuffi-
cient, and above all too remote. Hence comes that onward movement, during the
last decades, toward the south, toward Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, which
in our days so often assumes tangible form in the question of the Western Asiatic
railways and of a Russian harbour on that gulf. England has here a far more
difficult position than anywhere else on the coasts of the Indian Ocean. In Further
India the power of Holland is broken up over infinite islands, great and small ; in
East Africa England's colonial possessions lie firmly riveted round and behind the
territories of the Portuguese, Germans, and Italians. But there she sees herself
confined between the sea and an antagonist whose ponderous mass presses slowly,
but with irresistible power, toward the south.
6. RETROSPECT AND OUTLOOK
THE Indian Ocean, from the first day that men reached it and ventured on its
waters down to the present, has played the part of an intermediary, from the point
of view of anthropology, commerce, religion, and more especially of culture. This
peculiar property finds its truest expression, so far as the special history of this
part is concerned, in the formation of an Indo- African sphere of civilization,
which embraces the entire northwest of the ocean, and whose strongest representa-
tive we see before us in Islam. Even to-day it is still conceivable that Islam might
recover for its civilization that pre-eminence which has been gradually lost in four
centuries of conflict with the white races. The headship in this struggle would on
purely numerical grounds fall solely and simply to the people of India, if they
only chose to renounce their gloomy inertness in favour of a more active religion.
Their choice might well fall on Christianity. But, to begin with, Islam has already
a great advantage as compared with Christianity. Two million Christians are con-
fronted by fifty-seven millions of Mohammedans in India alone ; and, in the second
place, Christianity seems to have no prosperity in store for it within the region of
the Indian Ocean. It has not made any appreciable progress either on the south-
ern coasts of Asia or in Africa, while Mohammedanism has spread rapidly in both
continents. So long as India remains under English rule, it will never advance to
independent expansion on the high seas, since, for this purpose, the influence of
Europeanism on the inert mass of Hinduism in that tropical country is too
uificant.
This possibility is less remote in the case of the two other great English
colonies on the Indian Ocean. Australia, at the present day, is developing into
Sr] HISTORY OF THE WORLD 613
a commonwealth under English suzerainty, which has already in its youth given
vigorous signs of a tendency toward expansion. The direction of such expansion
is indeed without exception toward the north and the northeast, to the island
groups of Melanesia and Polynesia ; but what should prevent the United States
of Australia from turning their eyes at some future time on the Dutch archipel-
ago ? That South Africa, which is now embarking on a similar course of develop-
ment, should turn its attention to the Pacific is a physical necessity, since the
Antarctic and South Atlantic Ocean could not offer it any firm base.
The position of England in the Indian Ocean is greatly improved by such events ;
she is, indeed, since the successful inauguration of her Pan-African policy, stronger
than ever, and her dominion is still wider. Nevertheless, this ocean can hardly
become once again a closed English sea. There are too many powerful navies at
present to admit of this, as well as too many approaches to the ocean. Among
these means of access the Ked Sea has from decade to decade grown in importance,
owing partly to the pre-eminent value of Southeast and South Asia in the eyes of
Europe and the United States, but partly also to the substitution of the steamer
for the sailing-vessel as an instrument of commerce. Whether this change in
navigation, which chronologically, almost precisely, coincides with the opening of
the Suez Canal (1869), is a direct consequence of it must remain an undecided
point, but it certainly was influenced by that event. The Indian Ocean thus
testifies to its significance for a region which certainly will become a more im-
portant factor in shaping the world's history in the future than it is even at the
present time.
On the other hand, the future of the Indian Ocean in the domain of anthro-
pology cannot be anything but unimportant. There is no scope here for a mixture
of such far-reaching significance as we were able to foresee in case of the Pacific
Ocean (Vol. I, p. 595). The aborigines of Australia, doomed to destruction from
the first, may be disregarded ; but the Hindu, like the Africans of the mainland
from the east horn to the Zambesi, will continue to live in such dense masses, that no
infusion of foreign blood could produce noteworthy changes of this sort. It is only
in South Africa and in the equatorial district of the east coast of that continent
that the necessary conditions are found for a close intermixture of races. The
latter region has no future, for the Arab immigration has lessened since the com-
mencement of the new order of things. The Swahili country, therefore, is hope-
lessly abandoned to negro influences. The south, on the other hand, has better
prospects anthropologically, since there a number of various racial elements are
concentrated on a narrow space, — the Kaffir and the light-complexioned peoples of
the Hottentots, and the Bushmen, the low-German Boer, and the Anglo-Saxon, the
Malay and the Indian. It is questionable whether any mixture of all these various
elements will ever take place, but the first step toward this result has been shown
long ago in the case of the Bastaards.
INDEX
INDEX
ABAKA, 179, 180, 181
Abbassids, 423, 595
Abd Allah II of Bokara, 198, 199,
208
Abd ill Ahad. See SEIAD
Abd ullah, Seiad, 444, 446, 448
Abdallah of Golconda, 438, 439
Abhaya, 499
Abhiraja, 520
Abu AH el-Hussein ibn Sina, 420
Abu Said Badahur, 180, 186
Abu'1-fatb, Jelal ed-din Akbar,
431-439, 456, 481
Abu'l Fazl, 432, 434, 436
Abu'l Ghazi I, 199
Abu'l Hasan of Golconda, 442
Abu'l Kasim Barbar Bahadur, 186
Abyssinia, 168, 451
Acapulco, 570
Achaemenids, 590
Achakpa. See Asu CHIPA
Acheh (Achin), 550, 554, 560, 561,
603
Acre, 99, 100
Adams, John, 318
Adams, Tobias, 465
Adelaide, 251, 284, 285, 295, 296
Aden, 101, 593,595, 609
Aditya, 367
Aditya dharma, 555, 556
Adulis, 594
Adyi Saka, 555
Aetas, 516
Afghan, 347, 364, 420, 421, 424,
428, 430, 431, 433, 437, 445, 447,
463, 465, 471,484, 485, 487, 490,
492
Afghanistan, 138, 144, 184, 187,
197, 224, 225, 346, 347, 352, 364,
406, 407, 420, 421,424, 429, 433,
438, 482-484, 500
Africa, 234-237, 246, 247, 254,
265, 299, 304, 305, 308, 349, 351,
403, 450, 456, 495, 535, 536, 538,
549, 561, 572-575, 578, 580, 582-
584, 587, 588, 590, 591, 595, 597-
600, 602, 603, 605, 607-613
Afzal Khan of Bijapur, 441
Agastya, 359, 385, 386
Aggabodhi IV, 506
Agni, 367, 375
Agong of Materan, 558
Agra, 419, 430, 432, 438, 439, 456,
474, 480
Agrabhi I, 506
Agriculture, 7, 41, 63, 125-128,
131-134, 139, 209, 255, 259, 261-
265, 275, 276, 285, 291-294, 332,
349, 358, 359, 363, 365, 372, 406,
502, 509, 541, 568, 574, 578
Aguinaldo Emilio, 571, 572
Ahaz, 589
Ahmed, Ilkhan, 180
Ahmed Abdali Shah Durrani, 445,
446, 482, 485
Ahmed ben Owais, 180, 184
Ahmed Shah, Great Mogul, 447
Ahmed Shah Bahmani. See ALA
ED-DIN
Ahmedabad, 456, 469
Ahmednagar, 434, 438, 474
Ahmedpur, 487
Ai-Lao, 525
Ai Ti, 79
Ai Tsung, 95
Aigun, Convention of, 226
Aino (Ainu), 2, 3, 5, 9, 17, 20,
115, 130, 203, 204, 214, 215
Aisin Gioro. See also TAI Tsu,
102, 212
Aix la Chapelle, Peace of, 460
Aizu, Prince of, 49
Ajmir, 354, 420, 421, 430, 434, 456
Akabali, 587, 590
Akbar. See ABU'L FATH
Akbar, son of Aurang zeb. See
MOHAMMED
Akbar Khan, 483, 484
Akeshi Mitsuhide, 30
Aki, 5
Akita, 44
Akuta, 91
Ala ed-din Ahmed Shah II, 428
Ala ed-din Mohammed. See QUTB
Ala ed-din Mohammed Shah I,
424-426, 430
Alani, 154, 155, 205, 216
Alara Kalana, 391
Albasin, 106, 220
Albuquerque, Affonso d', 451, 521 ,
549
Albuquerque, Francisco d', 450
Alcock, Rutherford, 46
Alexander VI, pope, 604
Alexander VII, pope, 104
Alexander the Great, 144, 166,
387, 404-405, 417, 543, 590, 591
Alexandria, 546, 590, 591, 604
Alfonzo the Great, 450
Alfurs, 565, 567, 568, 585
Ali of Oudh. See WASIR
Ali II of Bijapfir, 442
Ali Guhar Shah Alam II, 443,
463, 465, 468, 473, 474
Ali Moghayat Shah, 561
Ali Muaggad, 184
Ali Wardi of Bengal, 462
'Alim Shah, 428
Alipuko. See ARIKBUGA
Aliwal, 486
Allah-Kuli Khan, 222
Allahabad, 371, 447, 463, 465, 471,
473, 491
Almeida, Francisco d', 450, 451
Alo ed-din al-Kahar, 561
Alompra, 522, 527, 532
Alphabets, also Writing, 6, 11, 12,
59-62, 68, 85, 116, 136, 164, 168,
169, 387, 388, 519, 548
Alps, 132
Altai Mountains, 124, 125, 132,
146, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160,
167, 183, 202, 206, 221, 227
Altamash. See SHAMS ED-DIN
Altyn Khan, 192, 219
Altyn Tagh, 124, 141
Amakusa, 25, 26
Amanda Gamaui, 504
Amaug Kurat, 558
Amano koyane no mikoto, 16
Amarapura, 522, 523
Amaterasu, 4
Amatsu, 4, 5
Amber, 433, 437, 444, 461
Amboina, 452, 453, 475, 551-553,
568
America, 96, 105, 131, 200, 201,
618
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Iinlt:.r
213, 214, 220, 221, 254, 255, 265,
294, 299, 305, 306, 311,313,320-
.'m, 452, 536, 542, 570, 602
America, South, 235, 245-247, 252,
1253,317
American, 231, 308, 313, 317, 324,
327, 343
Amherst, Lord, 478-480
Amir Khan, 477, 478
Amoy, 57, 106, 108
Ainrita, 367
Amu Daria, 196, 197, 223, 224,
362, 424
Amur, 1, 94, 200, 205, 212-214,
215, 217, 219, 220, 222, 225, 226,
228, 229
Ainursaua, 107
An hsi (Ansi), 79, 151
An Luh shaii, 91
Au te waug, 90
Au Ti, 88
Ananda, 392, 393, 396
Ancestors, worship of, 10, 43, 56,
61, 64, 104, 112
Andaman Islands, 479, 516, 538
Ando Tsushima no kami, 46
Andrade Feruao Perez, 549
Andriana, 575
Andrianimpoina, 576
Auga, 371
Angora, 184
Ankawijaya, 557
Amiam, 101, 107, 515-517, 524,
528-534, 544
Antananarivo, 578
Antarctic, 344
Antarctic Ocean, 234, 246, 344,
582
Antioch, 104, 591
Annradhapura, 497, 503, 505, 506,
509, 510
Anuruddha, 520
Anwar ed-din, 460, 461
Aorsi, 154
Apaoclii, 94
Apastamba, 374
Apia, 325-328
Appa, Sahib of Berar, 477, 478
Arab, 129, 160, 161, 163, 168, 200,
351, 354, 417, 419, 449-451, 511,
542-545, 548, 549, 557, 561, 567,
572, 574, 575, 595-601, 603, 604,
606, 607, 613
Arabi 1'a.slia, 610
Arabia. I 51, 450, 451, 546, 548, 549,
557, 583, 587, 588, 591, 503, 595
Arabian Sea, 348, 371, 387, 428,
590, 591, 595, 611
Arado.-., :>>7
Arahat, 394
Arakan, 479, 515, 520-523
Aral Sea, 154, 160, 197, 222
Archangel, 219
Architecture, 79, 80, 417-419,438,
547
Arcot, 449, 461, 473
Arctic, 201, 205, 209, 213, 218, 229,
276, 344, 453
Arctic Ocean, 199, 204, 219, 220,
276
Area, 1, 57-59, 115, 236, 277, 293,
294, 297, 300, 337, 345, 514, 554,
560, 562
Arendt, Karl, 62, 74, 87
Argaon, 474
Argun, 180
Arima, 22, 24-26
Arikbuga, 96; 177, 179
Arimaddaiia, 508
Arimaspes, 146, 147, 148
Aristeas, 136, 146, 147, 149
Arjuna, 370, 385
Arjuni, 445
Armenia, 100, 143, 176, 179, 180,
181, 184, 186, 351
Arrian, 404
Arslan Khan, 197
Art, 114, 117, 165-167, 418-420,
438, 502, 505
Arthur, Colonel, 248, 273-276
Arya, 365
Arya Damar, 557
Aryabhata, 417
Aryan, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 143,
144, 161, 202, 203, 205, 217, 345,
347, 348, 352, 355-365, 371-373,
375-379, 384-389, 400, 404, 406,
414, 417, 418, 425, 476, 495, 496,
498-500, 504, 541, 542, 588
Asaf Jab, 444, 447-449, 461-464,
467, 472, 474
Asaf ed-Doula of Oudh, 469, 471
Asamwratta, 379
Asanga, 409
Asela, King, 500, 503
Ashikaga, 19, 22-24, 29, 30, 118
Ashikaga Takauji, 22, 23, 118
Ashta, 478
Asia, 1, 20, 24, 54, 57-59, 75, 96,
100, 102, 112, 114-199, 230, 231,
234, 235, 253, 300, 306, 324, 343,
345-349, 361, 387, 406, 426, 450,
454, 456, 482, 494, 511, 514,519,
532, 535-537, 539, 543, 544, 552,
553, 569, 571, 572, 581, 582, 584,
585, 590, 592, 593, 595, 596, 599,
600, 602, 604, 606, 607, 611, 612
Asia Minor, 126, 143, 144, 176, 177,
184
Asiatic, 539, 540, 584, 585
Asoka, 166, 187, 387,394-397,399,
406-409, 497, 500, 501, 506
Assam, 348, 349, 351-354, 478, 479,
515, 516, 518, 522
Assan, 52, 53
Assassins, the, 177, 178
Assaye, 474
Assyria, 143, 347, 351, 404
Aston, VV. G., 6
Astrakhan, 199
Asu chipa, 97
Asura (Ahuramazdah), 367, 385
Aswatthamau, 374, 381
Athar Veda, 416
Atlantic Ocean, 127, 580, 582-587,
^ 594, 595, 599, 601, 602, 605, 610
Atman, 383
Atrek, 224
Atthakatha, 415, 504, 505
Attila, 155
Auckland, 336, 338
Auckland, Lord, George Eden,
481-484
Aurang zeb. See MOHAMMED
MUHI ED DIN
Austral Islands, 307
Australia, 230-299, 331-336, 338-
340, 535, 536, 538, 542, 580, 582,
583, 587, 600, 602, 606, 607, 608,
611-613
Australia, South, 271, 272, 283-
289, 292, 293, 299, 335, 337
Australia, Western, 270, 272, 280-
283, 289, 294, 297, 299
Australians, 240, 241, 245-247,
249-252, 585
Austria, 93, 345, 455, 463, 528
Autoku, 18, 19
Ava, 409, 479, 521, 522, 527
Avalokitesvara, 409
Avar, 127, 157, 205, 206, 216
Avatara, 410
Avieeuna. See ABU AiA EL-
HUSSEIN
Aymonier, E., 518
Ayodhya, 359, 371
Ayuthia, 521, 525-528
Azerbijan, 186
Azes, King, 407
Azim Shah. See MOHAMMED
'Aziz ed-din 'Alamgir III, Great
Mogul, 444, 463
Azores, 604
BAB EL MAXDEB, 609
Baber II. See ZEHIR ED-DIX
Babylon, 122, 131-135, 143, 406,
59~1
Bachu Noyan Gen, 98, 99
Bactria, 144, 151, 166, 404, 407,
430
Baelz, Dr. E., 2, 59, 115
Bagdad, 172, 176, 177, 179, 180,
423, 596
Bahadur Nizam Shah of Ahmed-
nagar, 434
/nrfe/j
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
619
Bahadur Salii. See RAJA
Bahfxiur Sliah of Gujerat, 431
Bahirava, 411
Bahliil Lodhi. See L6i>i
Buhmani dynasty, 428
Baian, 178
Baikal Lake, 89, 170, 205, 209,
220, 228
Bairam Khan, 432
Bairat (Bliahra), Decree of, 396
Bajazet I, Sultan, 184
Baji Uao, 447, 448
Baji Rao II, 477, 478, 488
Bak'fu, 13, 20, 39
Baker, Shirley, 330, 331
Baksar ( Buxar), 465
Balaji, 447, 448
Balaji Wiswanath, 446, 447, 467
Balamir, 155
Balboa, 594, 606
Bali, 557, 558, 568, 569, 603
Balkan Peninsula, 134
Balkh, 199, 438
Ballarat, 289, 290
Baltic Sea, 225
Baluchistan, 346, 352, 353
Bamboo Books, 62, 66, 71
Banda, 551, 553, 568
Baudhayana, 374
Bandula, General, 479
Bangalore, 471
Bangkok, 505, 520, 527, 528
Banhipur, 454, 455
Banjermassing, 545, 563, 564
Banka, 562
Banks, 254
Bantam, 551, 552, 558, 559, 563
Barawa, 598
Bardwan, 464
Barends(7,ou), Willem, 453
Barid Shah of Bedar, 428
Barker, Capt. Collet, 283
Barlow, Sir George, 475, 476
Baroda, 354, 448, 451, 482
Barrackpur, 490
Bass, Mr., 257
Bassein, 469, 470, 473, 477, 522,
523
Bassora, 596
Bastaards, 613
Batavia, 259, 318, 551-553, 555,
558
Batman, John, 277
Batta(k)s, 539, 548, 5GO, 561
Batu, 175, 181
Bay in Naung, king (Burmah), 521
Beas, 485, 486
Beliar, 421-423, 431, 434,444,465
Beinga-Della, 522
Bellala, 425
Benares, 371, 390-392, 397, 399,
421, 428, 431, 440, 447, 469, 481
Bendigo, 289
Benedict XIII, pope, 104
Bengal, 101, 257, 347, 351, 353,
354, 389, 410, 419, 421-423, 427,
430-433, 437, 439, 444, 447, 448,
451, 453-460, 462, 465, 467, 468,
470, 479, 520, 564
Bengal, Gulf of, 347, 348, 386, 428,
514, 523, 546
Benjowski, Count Moritz August,
576
Benkulen, 562
Bentinck, Lord, William Henry
Cavendish, 480, 481, 486
Berampur, 442
Berar, 428, 430, 434, 474, 482, 489
Berenice Troglodytice, 594
Bering Strait and Sea, 203, 209,
213, 214, 216
Bering Vitus, 221
Berkai, 181
Best, Captain, 456
Betsileo, 573, 576
Betsimisaraka, 573
Bhakor, 422
Bhallika, 391
Bharata, 369, 371, 374, 390, 412
Bhartpur, 444, 474, 479
Bhatta Bhavabhiiti, 418
Bhava, 412
Bhavini, 412, 481
Bhawawarman, king, 525
Bhilla (Bil), 388
Bhima, 370, 443
Bhodau Phra, 522
Bhonsla dynasty, 478
Bhumij, 360
Bhutan, 191, 346
Bhutcswara, 411
Bijapur, 439, 441, 442
Bijayanagar, 428, 429, 449, 510
Biliktu, 192
Billiton, 545
Bimbisara, king, 392, 402
Bindatsu, Japanese emperor, 10
Bindusara, 406
Bintang, 550
Bismarck Archipelago, 232, 300,
311
Bismarck, Prince, 327, 328
Biwa, lake, 18, 33
Bizen v. Kibi, 49
Black Hole of Calcutta, 462
Black River (Kuro Shiwo), 2
Black Sea, 126, 154, 225, 406
Blankert, 514
Bligh, William, 259, 260, 318
Blue Mountains, 257, 261, 270, 289
Bodhi (Bo, Budh), 391, 397, 501
Bodhisattwas, 409
Boer, 296, 611, 613
Bohemia, 99
Bokhara, 125, 172. 181, 183, 197-
199, 222, 223
Bolan Pass, 483
Boleslav V, Duke, 175
Bombay, 346, 351, 354, 457, 458,
467, 469, 472, 473, 478, 491
Bonard, Admiral Louis Adolphe,
532
Boni, 566, 567
Book of the Kings, 162
Bopp, Franz, 360
Borneo, 233, 475, 514, 516, 530,
539, 543, 545, 547, 552, 554, 557,
562, 565
Boro-Budur, 556
Borommaraja, 526
Boscawen, Admiral Edward, 460
Bosch, Jan von den, 554
Botany Bay, 232, 252, 255, 261,
608
Bougainville, L. A. de, 311
Bourdonnais, Gov. Bertrand-Fran-
cois Mahe de la, 460, 578
Bourke, Sir Robert, 263, 265, 278
Boutwell, Captain. 31 2
Bowen, Lieutenant, 272
Boxer, 54, 105, 111, 114
Boyen (Bayan), 95
Boyer, A. M., 407
Brahma, 383, 384, 415
Brahma Para Brahma, 410
Brahman, 345, 352, 353, 357, 360,
361, 369, 373-387, 391, 392, 396,
397, 400-403, 406, 408-418, 434,
436, 440-442, 444, 447, 468, 480,
481, 490, 496, 498, 499, 501, 504,
513, 516, 518-520, 524, 530, 548,
568
Brahman Shiva, 85
Brahmanas, 369, 377, 416, 417
Brahmanism, 166, 371-389, 396,
398, 404, 408-417, 444, 518, 519,
546-549, 555-558, 568, 597
Brahmaputra, 161, 346, 347, 349,
352, 423, 515, 587
Brahmi, 395
Brahui, 353, 360
Breewarina Labyrinth, 245
Breslau, 99
Brisbane, 279, 280, 293, 296
Brisbane, Sir Thomas, 263, 2G4
British Northwest Province, 349,
378
Bromijoyo, 558
Brooke, Sir Charles, 565
Brooke, James, 564, 565
Bruant, Volantz du, 527
Brunei, 543, 563-565, 569
Brydon, Dr., 484
Buckley, William, 278
Budam, 422
Buddha, 11-13, 20, 82, 162, 189,
620
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Index
190, 390-402, 501, 502, 505, 507,
510, 511, 513, 519, 520,588
Buddha-gaya, 391
Buddhadasu (Ceylon), 505
Hmklhaghosha, 415, 505, 519, 522
Buddhism, 6, 7, 10-14, 26, 56, 57,
81-86,89, 112, 115-117, 125,145,
152, 162, 164-169, 174, 187-193,
216, 346, 354, 375, 389-403, 406,
408-417, 496, 497, 500-507, 510,
512, 513, 519, 524, 544-549,555-
557, 593, 597
Bugi, 543, 563-566, 569
Buke, 17, 34, 37-39
Bulgaria, 206, 216
Billow, W. von, 313, 324, 325
Bulwer-Lytton, Baron, Edward
Robert, 493
Bundelkand, 423, 424, 428, 434, 438
Bungo, 23, 24, 51
Bunyo, 37
Burankri Naunchan, King (Bur-
raah), 521
Burmah, 106, 107, 110, 347, 350,
351, 354, 400, 409, 478, 479,487,
503, 507, 508, 516-518, 520-524,
526, 527, 528, 529, 532, 533
Burmese, 520, 521, 522, 523, 527,
528
Burnell, Arthur C., 374
Burnes, Alexander, 482, 483
Burning of the Books, 75, 140
Busby, James, 334
Bushkirs, 197
Bushrangers, 264, 274
Bussy, Marquis de, 461-463, 472
Buton (Butung), 566
Buyan Kuli, 183
Buzurg Khan, 195
Byzantium, 149, 150, 155, 159, 181
CABRAL, Pedro Alvarez, 450, 452
Cabul, 134, 183, 187, 364,404,420,
428, 429, 431, 438, 476, 482-484
Cairo, 611
Calcutta, 257, 281, 350, 388, 459,
462-464, 466, 467, 469, 472, 481,
523
Caldwell, Bishop, 359
Calicut, 450, 456, 511, 596, 604
Calmuks, 190, 192, 193, 197
( 'aiiibay, 456
Cambay, Gulf of, 346, 371, 372,
388, 496, 498
Cambodia, 57, 516-520, 524-528,
530-534
Cambulac, 100
( 'aniden, Lord, 257
Campbell, Archibald, 479
Campbell, Sir Colin, 486, 492, 493
Can wu dynasty, 158
Canada, 299
Cannanore, 456
Canning, George, 474, 477
Canning, Lord, 489, 490, 493
Canton, 58, 59, 92, 102, 103, 107-
109, 549, 592
Cape Colony, 608, 609, 611
Cape Cormorin, 385, 388, 389, 425,
461
Cape of Good Hope, 450, 453, 513,
552, 595, 608, 609
Cape Palmerston, 258
Cape Rames, 451
Cape Stephens, 258
Cape Town, 257
Cape Verde Islands, 605
Cape York, 235, 254
Capellen, Gov. Godard van der, 559
Carnatic, 449, 460, 461, 470, 472,
473, 494
Caroline Islands, 230, 300, 305,
308, 314, 327
Carpentaria, Gulf of, 258
Caspian Sea, 90, 124, 126, 138,
153, 154, 172, 196, 219, 222, 223,
224
Caste, 42, 43, 51, 90, 350, 352, 355,
374-387, 389, 406, 408,411,413-
415, 490, 496, 504, 520, 522, 546
Catchpoole, 531
Cathay, 606
Catherine of Braganza, 458
Catholic, 24-29, 98-100, 295, 312,
315-317, 321, 322, 329, 335, 341,
434, 512
Catholic monastic orders, 25, 27,
98-100, 452
Caucasus, 100, 134, 144, 154, 181
Cavendish, Thomas, 455
Cawnpore, 478, 491
Celebes, 475, 538, 543, 552, 554,
563, 565-569
Central Provinces, 349, 353, 354,
356, 448
Cerqueira, Bishop, 28
Ceylon, 345, 358, 359, 372, 378,
387, 388, 392, 394, 396, 397, 399-
401, 409, 416, 419, 451-453, 455,
475, 494-514, 519, 538, 553, 573,
583, 584, 585, 592, 593,596,597,
600, 606, 608
Chai, 75
Chaitanya, 410
Chalkri, 528
Chalukya, 408, 419
Cham, 516-518, 524, 525
Chambal, 447, 474
Chamberlain, Joseph, 244
Chambers, Chief-Justice, 328
Chamorro, 314
Champa, 516, 518, 519, 524-526,
530, 531
Champapura, 518, 525
Chan Chu, 74
Chancellor, Hugh, 219
Chand Bibi, 434
Chanda Sahib (Nuwab of Carna-
tic), 460-462
Chandernagore, 460, 463, 464
Chandrabhanu, 509
Chandragupta, 405, 407
Chaudragupta I, 407
Chang Chi tung, 114
Chang Chu, 67
Chang Kia wan, 109
Chang Kiang, 58
Chang kien, General, 79, 148, 151
Chang Liang ti, 91
Chang Mao. See TAIPING
Chang Pang chang, 94
Chang Shi cheng, 97
Chang te fu, 87, 89
Changan, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 90, 92
Chao, 71, 74, 75, 87
Chao Fei yen, 80
Chao Hsiang, 74
Chao Kao, 76
Chao Kuang yin, 93
Chao Shi, 95
Chao Ti, 79
Chao To, 77
Chao Tsung, 92, 9ti
Chao Wang, 71
Chao Yang, 80
Chao Tuan hao, 93
Chaochan, 84
Chaohsuan Ti, 92
Charax, 591
Charles II, England, 458
Charles V, 570
Charles VI, 454
Charnock, Governor, 459
Chatanati, 457, 459
Chatham Islands, 331
Chau, 59, 64, 65, 71, 89, 91, 101
Chan, Duke of, 70, 91
Chau dynasty, 62, 65, 68, 70, 74,
77, 82, 93, 140
Chau dynasty, later, 93
Chau Hsin, 59, 64
Chau li, 65, 68
Chau Po, 77
Chau Tuii-i, 95
Chaumont, Chevalier de, 527
Chavannes, Edouard, 69
Chekiang, 58, 71, 92, 94, 101, 103,
106
Chel la, 11 7
Chemulpho, 52, 120
Chen, 71, 74, 84, 89
Chen Pa hsien, 89
Chen Tsung, 93, 96
Chen Yu liaug, 97
Cheng, 71
Cheng cheng kung, 106, 570
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
621
Cheng chi lung, 106
Cheng chi sze. See GENGHIS
KHAN
Cheng Han, 87
Cheng ho, 101
Cheng hua. See HSIEN TSUNG
Cheng ko chuang, 106, 570
Cheng Tang, 63
Cheng Teh shin, 95
Cheng Ti, 79, 80
Cheng Tsung, 93, 96, 192
Cheng tu, 87
Cheng tung. See YING TSCNG
Cheng wang, 71
Chera, 386-388, 425
Chercheu, oasis, 125
Cheribon, 559
Cherra Punji, 349
Chhung chheng, 117
Chi, 71, 75, 78, 83, 89, 90, 92
Chi Cheng, 88
Chi fu Kuo yen, 88
Chi Mountains, 70
Chi Ti, 81
Chiang, 59
Chiangtu, 90
Chichi (Huhanye), 154
Chien Chao, 87
Chien Chin, 87
Chien Liang, 87
Chien lung. See KAO TSUNG
Chien Shu, 92
Chien wen. See Hui Ti
Chien Wen Ti, 84, 88
Chien Yen, 88
Chien vie. See NANKIN
Chiji, 9
Child, Sir John, 457
Chili, 59, 62
Chimkent, 222
Chin, 57, 71, 74, 75, 77, 82, 87, 92
Chin dynasty, 57, 65, 74, 77, 80,
116, 140
Chin I-kei, 118
Chin Shi Huang ti. See SHI
Chin Tsung, 94
China, 3, 8-11, 16, 21, 23, 31, 32,
38, 51-118, 122-127, 131, 132,
137, 139-142, 144-146, 149-153,
156, 157, 159-163, 168, 170-176,
178, 180, 182, 185, 188-191, 193-
195, 198, 209, 211, 216, 219-233,
225-227, 346, 352, 409, 426, 451,
453, 455, 492, 514-520, 546, 548,
550, 552, 556, 557, 561-563, 567,
570, 585, 588, 593, 597, 602
China Sea, 1, 57, 514, 515, 520
Chinese, 6, 8, 21, 26, 32, 41-44, 52-
54, 118, 119, 130, 133, 135-137,
140, 142-147, 149, 151-156, 158,
166, 175, 176, 178, 188, 191, 193-
195, 211, 214, 216, 226, 243, 280,
322, 324, 395, 407, 409, 502, 516,
517, 520-522, 524, 525, 528-530,
533, 539, 540, 543-545, 547, 552,
555, 557, 559, 560, 563-565, 567,
586, 592, 593, 596, 597, 600
Clung, Prince, 87
Ching dynasty, 57
Chiug nan, 92, 93
Chiug Province, 87
Chiug River, 70
Chiug Tan, 57
Ching Ti, 77, 87, 89
Ching yang fu, 88
Chinting tushu chi cheng, 106
Cliitor, 430, 433
Chittagong, 479, 515, 520
Chola, 386-388, 408, 425, 429, 506-
510
Chola Naga, 504
Choshu, 46-48, 50, 51
Chota Nagpur, 352
Chou Fa-Mongkut, 528
Christianity, 10, 12, 24-30, 32, 50,
84, 97-100, 102-105, 108-111,
120, 166-169, 176, 177, 180, 181,
187, 295, 313, 315, 316, 321, 322,
325, 329, 333, 334, 340-342, 401,
436, 439, 452, 490, 511, 512, 527,
528, 530, 532, 544-546, 570, 571,
577, 596, 612
Christmas Islands, 309
Chronology, 62, 78, 117, 233, 417,
525, 556
Chu, 71, 76, 77, 84, 90, 92, 94,
222
Chu Chuan Chung, 92
Chu hi, 86, 95
Chu ko liang, 76, 86
Chu Ti, 93
Chu yang, 97
Chu Yuan chang, 97
Chii Chii Meng hsiin, 88
Chuan hsu, 63
Chuang Hsiang, 74
Chuang Tsung, 92
Chuen dynasty, 89
Chukchi," 213, 214, 220
Chukiang, 58, 59
Chukyo Tenno, 21
Chul chong, 120
Chulalongkoru, King, 505
Chumigren, King, 526
Chun, Prince, 109
Chun Chin, the, 65
Chung cheng. See HUAI TSUNG
Chung fu, 119
Chung Hau, 110
Chung Hwa, 56
Chung Kang, 63
Chung Kwoh yin, 57
Chung mao, 91
Chung shan, 87
Chung Ti, 81
Chung Tsung, 91
Chung tu, 72. See also PEKING
Chung Yung. 66, 68
Chungking, 59
Chusan Islands, 58
Cimmerians, 143, 146
Circars, 462, 463, 467
Clans, 5, 16, 51, 112
Clement VIII, pope, 27
Clement X, pope, 527
Clement XI, pope, 104
Cleveland, President Grover, 323
Clive, Robert, 461-468, 473, 477,
605
Cochin, 351, 354, 482, 513
Cochin China, 57, 81, 177,409, 515,
516, 517, 529-534
Coen, Jan Pieterszon, 551, 552
Coimbatore, 388
Colbert, 103, 459, 561
Collins, Colonel, 272, 274, 277,278
Colombo, 510-514
Columbus, 5", 96, 252, 253, 450,
594, 599, 605
Comba, 388
Combermere, Lord, 479
Comoro Islands, 578
Compagnie des Indes, 103
Confucianism, 56, 64-68, 83, 85, 86,
89, 112, 115-117
Confucius. See RUNG FU TSZE
Constantinople, 99, 155, 159, 172
Constitutions, 14-17, 36-39, 50, 52,
56, 287-289, 298-299, 321, 322,
324, 325, 328, 330, 338
Convicts, 227, 229, 250, 254-258,
261-264, 268-270, 272-277, 279,
280, 282, 283, 312, 333
Cook, James, 252-255, 309-311,
316, 318, 319, 328, 329, 335, 336,
339, 344, 607
Cook Islands, 331, 332
Coote, Col. Eyre, 464, 470
Copleston, Bishop, 396, 402
Coptos, 588, 591
Cornish, W. R., 376
Cornwallis, Lord, 470, 471, 475
Coromandel, 339, 354, 387, 427,
425, 452, 453, 456, 458, 460, 494,
547
Cossacks, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221,
227
Courbet, Rear-admiral, 534
Crawford, John, 546
Crimea, 134, 181, 182, 217, 287,
490, 492
Crom Chiat, 528
Croyere, Louis Delisle de la, 221
Cuddalore, 470
Cunningham, Allan, 271, 279
Currie, Sir Frederick, 486
622
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
ndex
Curzon of Kedleston, Baron, George
Nathaniel, 493
Custom duties, 54, 286, 287, 298,
323
Cutch, 408
Cttttack, 352
Cvpi-HS, 99
Cyrus, 135, 143, 404
DAENDELS, Gen. Herman Willem,
559
Daghiu, 12
Dagoshau, 477
Daigo, 17
])aijo daijin, 16-18
Dai jo kuan, 16
Daimyo, 35, 49, 50, 51
Dainihonshi, 44
Dalai-Lama, 162, 188-194, 226
Dalhousie, Lord, 487-491, 493, 523
Dalrymple, Col. Harry North, 524
Daly, 236
Damak, 558
Damascus, 184
Dam pier, William, 253, 254, 311
Dauial, 434, 438
Dan-no-ura, 18, 20
Danube, 143, 144, 155, 206
Dappert, Olfert, 480
Dara Shukoh, 439
Dardistan, 351, 352
Darieu, 606
Darius, 143, 144. 216
Darius Hystaspes, 404, 590
Darling, Sir Ralph, 263, 264, 276
Darling Downs, 271, 279
Darling River, 236, 245, 271
Darwin, Charles, 248, 337
Dasa, 356, 364
Dasyu, 356, 358, 364, 367, 377
Davatsi (Tse wan da shi), 107
Davey, Governor, 274
David, 587
Davud Shah of Bengal, 433
Duwarbakhsh, 438
Decabrist, 229
Deccan, 347, 348, 350, 352, 378,
403, 408, 410, 419, 425, 426, 428,
429, 434, 437-440, 442, 444, 447-
449, 458, 461, 403, 494, 496
Delagoa Bay, 605, 608
Delhi, 184, 187,371, 419-425, 427,
428, 430-434, 437-440, 441, 443,
445, 446, 448, 456, 457, 463, 465,
468, 473, 474, 482, 491, 492
Demak, 562
Dengio, 11
Denmark, 220, 245, 345, 454, 475,
566, 606
Denyo, 34
D.Tucut, 259, 272
D«-\a'latta, 393
Devagiri, 424, 425, 427, 428
l)cw;iii;impiya Tissa, 500, 503
Dhamma, 396, 500
Dhammfisoka, 394
DharmaPauli Raja, 511
Dharmasiitras, 374
Dhatusena, 497, 506
Dhritarashtra, 369, 370
Dhruwasena, 408
Dhulip Singh, 486, 487
Diadochi, 405
Diaz, Bartolomeo, 450
Diemen, Antonio Van, 532
Digambara, 403
Din Mohammed, Sultan, 198
Diodorus, 404
Diodotus, 407
Dioscorides, 588
Dipawamsa, 394, 497
Diwan Mulraj, 487
Djaunah Mohammed-shah ibn
Toghluq, 126
Dnieper, 99, 217
Don, 99, 217
Dost Mohammed, 477, 482, 483,
492
Douglas, Robert K., 59
Doulat Khan Lodi, 428, 430
Drake, Francis, 455
Dravidian, 345, 352, 353, 355, 356,
359, 360, 372, 378, 386, 388, 392,
400, 407-409, 411-414, 419, 425,
432, 476, 495, 502, 506, 508-510,
513, 518
Drona, 370, 374, 381
Drupada, 370
Duab, 371, 423, 424, 465, 474, 486
Dubois, E., 130, 537
Duchesne, Lieutenant-General. 578
Dufferin, Count of, Frederic Tem-
ple Blackwood, 493
Dundas, David, 474
Dungaus, the, 194, 195, 196, 223
Dupetit-Thouars, Captain, 315,
316, 321
Dupleix, Joseph Frangois, 460-
462, 472
Durga, 413, 416
Durham, Lord, 335
Durjan Sal of Bhartpur, 479
Durven, Diederick, 552
Duryodhana, 370
Dutch, 26-29,41, 43, 254, 297, 350,
452-457, 459, 460, 462, 464, 475,
512, 513, 522, 529, 530, 551-554,
558-562, 564, 566, 567, 569, 575,
578, 604, 606, 608, 609, 612
Dutch East India Company, 453,
464, 566, 568
Duttha Gamani, 501, 503
Dyak, 536, 539, 562, 533, 564, 569
Dzuugaria, 57, 190, 193-195, 197
EAST INDIA TRADING COMTAXV
of Osteml, 454, 455, 605
East Indian Netherlands Co , 105,
108
East Indies, 194, 543, 544, 549, 552,
567
Easter Island, 260, 300, 305, 306,
308, 309, 310,317, 318, 344, 536
Eastern Sea, 57
Echigo, 51
Edkins, Joseph, 67
Edomites, 587
Edrisi, 543, 574, 593
Education, 78, 90, 228, 251, 276,
294, 295, 321, 330, 420, 427, 480,
486, 488
Egypt, 101, 112, 133, 135, 184, 186,
253, 451, 472, 548, 549, 586, 588,
591, 595, 604, 609-611
Egyptian, 135, 179, 587, 588, 530
Elamites, 587
Elath, 594
Eleuthes, 106
Elgin and Kincardine, Count of
James Bruce, 493
Elizabeth, Queen. 455
Ellenborough, Lord, 484, 485, 609
Ellichpur, 434
Elphinstone, Mouutstuart, 427,
476, 477
Elphinstone, William G. K., 483
Emesa, 180
Emma, Queen, Hawaii, 322
England, 15, 27,46, 47, 52-54, 105,
108-110, 121, 132, 195, 223, 224,
243, 244, 247-252, 260-262, 267-
269, 272-280. 282, 283, 285, 287,
288, 290, 291, 292, 295, 298, 313,
316,318,321,322, 324,326-331,
334-336, 339, 343, 350, 454, 456,
467, 468, 470, 486, 490, 513. 523,
524, 528, 529, 553, 559, 565, 577,
605-613
English, 27, 28, 45-49, 111, 233,
243, 244, 247-299, 311-313, 315,
316, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327. 331 ,
333, 335-338, 343, 348, 350, 357,
415, 416,427, 446,452,497, 453-
534, 551, 553, 558, 562, 564-567,
569, 571, 576-578, 608, 611-613
English East India Trading Com-
pany, 454, 455, 457, 458, 467, 480,.
488, 493, 514
Enomoto, Admiral, 49
Ephtalites, 144
Eratosthenes, 599
Er-langa, 556
Erythrean Sea, 598
Eschizen, 30, 39, 46, 48
Eskimos, 201, 214
Ethiopian, 594
Eto Shimpei, 51
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
623
Evigene, Prince, 454
Euphrates, 143, 225, 456, 587, 590,
591, 593, 594
Europe, 19, 54, 75, 96, 98, 112, 122,
125, 127, 130, 131, 134, 141, 146,
153-155, 159, 169, 172, 176, 177,
181, 206, 207, 214, 216, 217, 236,
253, 254, 262, 265, 318,324, 342,
346, 355, 361, 372, 384, 523, 535,
549, 571, 595, 596, 601, 604,606,
609, 612
European, 1, 10, 24, 48, 56, 179,
200, 203, 205, 227, 231, 234, 239,
242, 245, 246, 248-253, 258, 301,
311, 312, 314, 317, 319, 320, 324,
325, 329, 331, 333, 334, 336-338,
342, 348, 350, 351, 354, 355, 382,
414, 436, 439, 448,466, 472, 477,
480, 481,486, 491, 492, 498, 521,
522, 526, 528, 530, 531, 536, 539,
542, 544, 545, 549-554, 563, 564,
567, 573, 576, 597, 602, 603, 605,
607, 611,612
Eyre, Edward John, 271
Eziongeber, 589
FA HIEN, 82, 409, 544, 547, 555
Fakhr ed-din Junah Khan. See
MOHAMMED II
Farquhar, Sir Robert, 577
Farrukhsiyar. See MOHAMMED
FARRUKHSIYAR
Farsistan, 184
Fath 'All of Persia, 476
Fattah Ullah 'Imad Shah of
Berar, 428
Fattepur Sikri. See KANWA
Fauna, 115, 201-203,239,304,305,
332, 333, 358, 494, 541, 572
Fazl. See AB{J'L FAZL
Fei Ti (Tsang wu wang), 87, 89, 92
Fei Tsze, 74
Feizi. See SHEKH FEIZ!
Feng, 70
Ferghana, 79, 125, 141, 147, 163,
186, 195, 197, 199, 223, 429
Fergusson, James, 547
Ferid Chan. See SHIR SHAH
Feroz Shah II, 424
Feroz Shah III, 427
Ferozshah, 486
Fiji, 231-233, 297, 303, 305, SOS-
SIS, 319,324, 328, 330, 332, 342,
540
Fillmore, President, 47
Finance, 37, 50, 262-265, 268, 269,
276, 282, 284-288, 291, 294, 312,
313, 322, 331, 332, 337-340, 454,
456-458, 463, 465, 468-471, 479,
480, 486, 488, 523
Finn, 127, 205, 206, 216, 218
Finno-Ugrian, 130, 138, 203, 206
Finscli, Otto, 202
Finlusi, 420
Fitzroy, Sir Charles, 290
Fitzroy, Robert, 337
Five Emperors, the, 63, 70
" Five King," 65
Five River Laud (Pantshanada),
347, 352, 364, 365, 367, 368,371,
373, 378, 389, 404, 405
Flacourt, Etieune de, 576
Flinders, Matthew, 258
Flinders Island, 249
Flora, 115, 201, 238-239, 303, 304,
332, 494, 540, 572
Floris (Flores), 538, 569
Forde (English officer), 463
Formosa, 2, 51, 53, 55, 59, 60, 105,
107, 108, 409, 542, 552, 570
Fornander, A., 319
Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, 561
Fort George, Coromandel, 458
Fort Kalanga, 476
Fort Perovsk, 222
Fort St. David, 460, 461
Fort William, Bengal, 459
" Four Shu," 65
France, 23, 46, 47, 53, 99, 103, 108-
111, 120, 127, 263, 312, 316, 317,
322, 324, 334, 336, 343, 459-467,
470, 476, 523, 528, 529, 531, 533,
534, 553, 576-578, 606, 607
Francis, Philip, 467, 468
Franklin, Benjamin, 335
Franklin, Sir John, 276
Frederick the Great, 455
Fremantle, Captain, 281
French, 105, 108, 110, 120, 258,
263, 272, 273, 277, 280, 295, 311,
312, 315, 316, 320,321,330, 334,
335, 341, 454, 455, 459-469, 470,
475, 513, 523, 527, 532, 534, 553,
573, 576-578, 606-609, 611
French East India Company, 576
Freycinct, L. C. D. de, 251
Fu, 101
Fulin, 105, 153
Fuchan, 57, 95, 108
Fudai, 36
Fudsionoma, 37
Fuh(s)i, 62
Fujiwara, the, 5, 14-19, 21, 33, 37
Fukien, 92, 101, 102, 106
Fukuda, 34, 41, 42, 56
Fukui, 31
Funu, 4
Fusan, 9, 31, 118, 119, 120
Fushimi, 33, 39, 48, 118
Fusu, 76
Fuyu, 115, 116
GAETANO, Juan, 319
Gaja Bahu IV, 507, 508
Galapagos Islands, 317
Galdan (Go Erh dan), 106
Galle, 511, 512
Gallieui, Gen. Jos. Simon, 578
Galumalemang, 325
Galv&o, Antonio, 550
Gama, Vasco da, 450-452, 511, 594,
601-604
Gambier Islands, 254, 307, 315
Ganaginoma, 37
Gandhara, 405
Ganesa, 411, 412, 519
Ganges, 184, 187, 346, 349, 352,
353, 364, 368-372, 377-380, 389,
390, 402-405, 408, 413, 420, 431,
456, 458, 459, 462, 465, 474, 476,
478, 486, 488, 491, 496, 499, 515,
518, 583
Ganges-Brahmaputra, 347, 348
Ganjam, 352
Ganoma, 37
Gardane, General de, 476
Gamier, Lieut. M. J. F., 533
Garuti, 371
Gaupati, 425
Gautama, 374, 390, 395, 399, 400,
402, 406, 409. See also BUDDHA
Gaw-Laya (Burmah), 520
Gawler, Colonel, 284, 285
Gayomath, 424
Ceding Souro, 562
Gedrosia, 404, 405
Ge'ez, 595
Geographical formation, 1, 58, 59,
114, 115, 122-127, 199, 200, 208,
209, 213, 230, 238, 299-302, 331,
344, 345-350, 494, 515, 535, 536,
555, 560, 562, 565
Genghis Khan, 20, 95, 98, 100, 158,
169, 172, 174, 176, 180, 181, 183,
187, 188, 191, 194, 216,422, 423,
427
Genouilly, Commodore Charles
Rigault de, 532
Gensan, 120
George IV of England, 333
George Tubou I (Taufaahau), 329,
330, 341
George Tubou II, 330, 331, 341
Georgia, 180, 181, 184
Gerini, G. E., 518
German, 175, 228, 233, 243, 271,
282, 295, 313, 317, 327, 330, 343,
605, 607, 611, 612
Germany, 10, 23, 40, 52, 53, 105,
111, 127, 265, 297, 298, 313, 319,
326, 327, 328, 330, 343, 345, 346,
463, 528, 595, 604, 606, 610
Gesenius, Wilhelm, 149
Ghakkas, 422
Ghats, 342, 388, 449
Ghazan, 180
624
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
nd ex
(iha/.i ed-din II Mahtnud, 422
423
Ghazni, House of, 419-422, 483
484
Ghiyas ed-din Balban, 423, 424
426
Ghiyas ed-din Mohammed ibn-Sam
4:2 1
Ghiyas ed-din II (Mahmud), 422
Ghiyas ed-din Tughlak I, 426
Gho'r, 419-422
Ghulab Singh, 485
Ghurkas, 107, 476, 477
Ghuzes (Oghuz), 160
Gilbert, Gen. W. R., 487
Gilbert Islands, 301, 305
Giljaks, 1, 203, 215
Gillespie, Major-General Sir Rob-
ert, 476
Gipps, George, 266, 267
Gladstone, W. E., 298
Glass, 150
(imelin, Joh. George, 221
Go Daigo, 22, 23
Go Fudai, 36, 37
Go Fushimi, 23
Go Kameyama tenno, 23
Go Mizuno, 40
Go-san-ke (io), 40, 45
Go Shirakawa, 17, 18
Go Toba, 21
Go Tsuchi Tenno, 23
Go Uda, 21
Goa, 27, 346, 352, 451, 453, 455,
475, 511, 566
Gobi, Desert of, 94, 123, 124, 142,
192, 220
Godavari, 352, 408
Godeffroy and Son, 313, 327
Gogra, 456
Gokama, 389
Gokenin, 35
Gokinai, 5
Golconda, 439, 441, 442, 459
Gold, 4, 25, 33, 240, 280, 283, 289-
294, 296, 332, 339, 340, 543, 545,
572, 578, 589
Golden Chersonese, 546, 580, 592
Gond, 352, 355, 360
Gorakhpur, 395
Gordon, Charles George, 110
Gosekke, 17
Goshi, 36
Gotama. See BUDDHA
Gotenyama, 46
GotluVbhaya, 305
Gough, Sir Hugh, 486, 487
Govindpur, 459
Grandidier Alfred, 538, 572, 574,
575
Grant, President Ulysses S., 326
Great Australian Bight, 272
Great Desert, 347, 371
Great Mogul, 187, 429-493
Great Wall of China, 75, 76, 126
140
Greece, 10, 134, 136, 144, 411, 546
557, 581, 593, 598, 600
Greek, 143, 166-168, 202, 347, 368
386, 387, 404, 406, 407, 418, 498
591, 594
Greenland, 201, 209
Gregory of Tours, 502
Gregory XIII, pope, 27
Grey, Earl, 269, 279, 287
Grey, Sir George, 282, 285, 337
338
Grierson, George A., 353
Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, 361
Groneman, J., 547
Grose, Major, 256, 257
Guam, 314, 324, 343
Guignes, Joseph de, 139
Guilds, 10, 43, 51, 56
Guilford, Earl, Frederick North
514
Gujerat, 354, 372, 388, 403, 407,
408, 420, 421, 427, 431,433, 447,
453, 469, 482, 487, 496-498, 500,
547
Gun Carriage Island, 249
Gunpowder, 113, 171, 175
Gupta, 407, 408
Gurn, 381,412
walior, 421, 430, 439, 448, 469,
473, 474, 478, 482, 485-493
HACHIMAN, 9
Hachiman Taro, 22
Hahn, Eduard, 133
Hai phong, 533
Hai shan Wu Tsung, 97
Haidarabad, 354, 356, 428, 444,
447, 448, 472, 476, 482, 489
Hainan, 60, 108, 530
lakka. See KHIRGHIS
Hakodate, 43, 45, 49
3akone, Pass of, 22
lalmahera, 547, 567
lam gyeng, 117
iami Oasis, 125
Han, 50, 57, 75, 77, 78, 88, 92, 93,
97
Han cho, 63
Han dynasty, 7, 57, 65, 73, 76-79,
80-8*2, 86," 87, 116, 152
Ian dynasty, later, 81, 93, 115
Han ki, 93
Ian Lin erh, 97
Han River, 60, 120
Ian Wen Kung, 84
Ian yang, 117
langChingTi, 81
Iangcb.au, 57, 94
Hankan, 59
Hanoi, 530, 533
Hapai, 329
Har Govind, 445
Har Govind II, 445
Hardinge, Lieutenaut-General,
485, 486, 488, 493
Hardy, Edmund, 396
Hare, William, 564
Ilargreaves, 289
Hari-kari, 19, 20, 33, 48
Harris, General, 472
Harris, Townsend, 45
Harrison, President Benjamin,
323
Hartog Dirk, 253
Hasan Busurg, 180
Hasan Gangu, 428
Hastinapura, 370
Hastings, Warren, 467-470
Hastings, Marquis of, Lord Moira,
476-478, 480
Hatamoto, 35, 36, 37
Hatheput, Queen, 588
Havelock, General, 491, 492
Hawaii, 230, 231, 232, 300, 306,
307, 310, 319-324, 328, 341-344
Hawaiki. See SAVAII
Haye, Governor La, 576
Heath, Captain, 457
Hebrews, 100, 351, 352, 354, 575,
588-590, 596
Hedin, Sven, 147
Heike, 19
Henry the Navigator (Portugal),
450
Henry II of Silesia, 175
Henry IV (France), 459
Henty Family, 277, 281
Herat, 172, 180, 184, 421, 482, 490
Herodotus, 57, 136, 146, 404
Hervey Islands, 315
Heytesbury, Lord William, 481
rliaksai, 116
Hiao tang shan, 69
Hidetada, 26, 33, 39, 41
Hideyori, 25, 33, 34, 44
Hideyoshi, 9, 30-33, 35, 40, 102,
118, 119
Hieizan, 11, 12, 18, 22
Hilment, 482
Himalaya Mountains, 58, 123, 126,
161, 346, 347, 349, 352, 354, 390,
410, 411, 423, 426, 433, 476, :>sx
Himeko, Queen, 3, €, 8, 9
linayana, 409
Hindu, 352, 353, 354,355, 410-414,
419-430, 432, 434-436, 438, 439,
440, 441, 463, 465, 466, 468, 472,
481, 486, 489, 490, 518, 519, 544,
546-548, 555, 557, 560, 563, 567,
568, 573, 585, 613
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
625
Hindu Rush, 144, 363, 364, 429,
439, 483
Hiiiduism, 353, 354, 408, 410-414,
418-429, 513, 518, 548, 556, 557,
561, 566, 612
Hindustan, 421-423, 428, 430,
444-446, 448, 459, 463, 465, 474
Hindustani (Urdu), 420
Hippalus, 591
Hipparchus, 591, 606
Hira, 593, 595
Hirado, 26, 28, 29
Hiram, king of Tyre, 589
Hirth, Friedrich, 79, 139, 151, 153,
154
Hisen, 23, 31, 39, 50, 51
Hislop, Gen. Sir Thomas, 478
Hitachi, 22
Hitopadesa, 418
Hitotsubashi, 40, 45, 48
Hiuen Tsang, 84, 395, 409, 410,
525
Hiung nu, 75, 79, 81, 139, 210, 407
Ho Fei, 87
Ho-shi-la, 97
Ho Ti, 89
Hoang ti Tang, 70
Hoangho, 58, 70, 71, 79, 93, 97,
109, 124, 140, 164, 173, 175,
176
Hobart, 247, 258, 272, 274, 295,
296
Hobart, Lord, 513
Hobson, Captain, 335-337
Hochstetter, Ferdinand von, 339
Hodsou, English officer, 492
Hoernle, A. F. R., 402
Hoii, 37
Hojo, the, 19-22, 35. See also
TOKIMASA
Hojo Tokeyori, 12
Holkar, 469, 473, 475
Holkar dynasty, 477
Holland, 27, 342, 344, 453, 454,
513, 552-554, 561, 606, 612
Holo, 62
Homer, 129
Houan, 59, 60, 63, 64, 71, 78, 81,
87, 89, 90, 92-94, 101, 175
Hondo (Honshin, Nippon), 1, 2,
30, 215
Hong Kong, 105, 108
Hongi (Shongi), 333, 334, 341,
342
Honjo, 34
Honolulu, 322, 323
Hooker, William Jackson, 276
Hopetown, Earl of, 299
Horde, 186, 197, 358
Horde, Blue, 181
Horde, Golden, 96, 181, 182
Horde, White, 181
VOL. 11 — 40
Hos, 360
Hosain, 183
Hosho, 116
Hosokawa, 23
Hou Chao, 87
Hou Chau. See CHAD
Hou Chin, 88
Hou Chu, 89
Hou Han. See HAN
Hou Liang. See LIANG
Hou Shu, 93
Hou Tang. See TANG
Hou Tsin. See TSIN
Hou Yen, 87
Houtman, Cornells de, 453, 551
Hova, 573-578, 611
Hovell, William, 271, 277
Hsi Chin, Liang, We, and Yen.
See CHIN
Hsi ping, 156
Hsi po, 64
Hsia, 93, 97, 101, 164, 172, 349
Hsia dynasty, 57, 59, 62, 63-65,
68, 70, 92, 93
Hsia, Western, 92, 95, 163, 174
Hsiang, 62
Hsiang Chi, 76, 77
Hsiang Liang, 76
Hsiao, 74
Hsiao Ching Ti, 89
Hsiao King, 66
Hsiao Ming Ti, 83
Hsiao Tao Cheng, 89
Hsiao Tsung (Huug chi), 101
Hsiao Wu Ti, 82, 89
Hsiao Yen, 89
Hsien, 101
Hsien peng. See WEN TSUNG
Hsien pi. See SIEN PE
Hsien Ti, 81, 86
Hsien Tsuug, 84, 96, 98, 176. See
also MANGU KHAN
Hsien yaug, 76
Hsin, new dynasty, 79
Hsing ching, 102, 212
Hsu, 78
Hsii, Shon hui, 97
Hsiian Ti, 79, 80, 152
Hsuan Tsung, 84, 91, 98, 171
Hsiian Wang, 71
Hsuan Tsung (Tao Kuang), 108
Hsuen Tsang. See HIUAN TSANG
Hu, 75
Hua Tai, 88
Iluai Ti, 88
Huai Tsung, Chung cheng, 102
Huai Yang, 81
Huan Hsuan, 88
Huan Ti, 81
Huang Chao, 88
Huang chin tse'i. See YELLOW
TURBAN
Huang ti, 62, 63, 78, 145
Hue, 53 1
Huemo Kadphises, 144, 407
Hugli, 346, 454-457, 459, 464
Ilui Ti, 77, 101
Hui Tsung, 94
Hui wen, 74
Hukuang, 71, 101, 107
Hulagu, 176, 178, 179, 423
Humayun. See NASIK KIM>I.\
Hume, Hamilton, 271, 277
Huns, 127, 139-144, 146, 148, 149,
151-158, 161, 162, 170, 173, 174,
186, 205, 206, 210, 211, 216, 408
Hunan, 60, 77, 78, 107
Hung, Prince, 77
Hung chi. See HSIAO TSUXG
Hung Tsiu tsuen, 109
Hung \vu. See TAI Tsu
Hungarians, 99, 127, 216
Hungary, 96, 175, 181, 206
Hunter, Captain, 256, 257
Hupei, 58, 78, 89, 92, 97, 102, 107
Hussein, Ali, 444, 446, 448
Hyder Ali, 466, 467, 470, 472
Hyperboreans, 147, 200-206, 208,
209, 213, 216, 227
Hyphasis, 405
Hyuga, 5
I PROVINCE, 78
I barbarians, 59
I hong, 120
Iking, 65, 66, 73, 80
I lin chi pan, 97
I Ti (Prince Huai of Chu), 77
Ibrahim Shah I, 424
Ibrahim II, 428, 430
Ibrahim (Suri), 431
Ibrahim (Simuride), 444
Ichan, 87
Ichany, 59
Idumeans, 589
lelal ed-din Khilji. See FEROZ
Ihauriko, 5
li-kamon no kami, 45
Ikamon no Kani, 37
Iki(-shima), 1, 21
Ikko, 12
Ilbars, 198
Ilchikadai, 99, 100
Hi, 57, 65, 68, 110, 125, 222
Hi chu Tsai, 173, 174, 176
Ilkan, 180
Ilkhan dynasty, 179
Imerina, 573, 575
India, 24, 82, 84, 85, 112, 122-
126, 129, 134, 143, 144,147, 148,
150, 151, 153, 161, 166, 172, 179,
243, 343, 345-495, 500, 502, 503,
505, 508, 513-515, 520, 522, 538,
544-548, 551-553, 556, 560, 563,
626
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
569, 570, 579, 580, 583, 584, 585,
588, 590, 591, 592, 594-597, 604-
606, 608-610, 612
Indian, 134, 144, 164, 166, 168,
345-495, 539, 540, 543-549, 555,
573, 590-594, 603, 613
Indian Ocean, 234-236, 242, 243,
259, 349, 449, 450, 475, 511,520,
542, 548, 580-613
ludo-Aryau, 389
Indo China (Further India), 135,
139, 353, 360, 455, 514-534, 557,
586, 612
Indo-Germanic, 361
Indo-Iranian, 362, 363
Indo-Scythians, 144, 145
Indonesia, 230, 231, 233-235, -305,
496, 516, 518, 535-579, 581, 582,
583, 584, 585, 597
Indore, 448, 473, 474, 478
Indra, 358, 359, 362, 367, 368, 375
Indraprastha, 370
Indus, 161, 172, 184, 187, 346, 347,
353, 364, 368, 371, 372, 404,405,
407, 420, 421, 423, 483, 496, 547,
583, 590, 591, 595
Ingologo of Materan, 558
Innocent IV, pope, 98, 99
Innocent X, pope, 104
Innocent XI, pope, 105
Inouye, 47
Irak," 176, 179
Iran, 124-126, 129, 131, 134, 139,
143, 144, 146, 167, 178, 180-182,
184. 186, 588
Iranian, 135, 143, 144, 146, 148,
154, 166, 167, 179, 180, 187, 196,
205, 206, 360-365, 404
Irawaddi, 347, 479, 487, 515, 517,
520, 523
Irkutsk, 220, 228
Irnach (Pleruac, Irnas), 155
Iroha, Japanese alphabet, 11
Irtish, 221
Isauagi no mikoto, 4
Isanami no mikoto, 4
Isinawarinau, King, 525
Isker, 218
Isle Bonaparte. See REUNION
Isle de Bourbon. See REUNION
Isle de France. See MAURITIUS
Isle Napole'on. See MAUKITIUS
Ismail el Sufi, 196
Ismail. See KHEDIVE
Ispahan, 184
Issedones, 146, 147, 148,407
Issik-kul, 141, 142, 144
iswara, 384
Italy, 609-612
ItD, Marquis, 47, 52, 53, 54
Ivan IV, Tsar, 207, 217, 218
Iwakura, 47
lyemitsu, 40, 41, 119
lyemochi, 48
lyesada, 45
lyeyasu, 3, 20, 25-27, 30-44
lyeyoshi, 45
Izumo, 4, 5, 7
JACATRA, 551
Jacobi Hermann, 402
Jacobseu, J. A., 202
Jafna, 510-513
Jagatai, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184
Jagdalak, 484
Jah, 444
Jain, 354, 394, 402-404, 408, 410,
419
Jaipal, 419, 420
Jaipur, 444
Jamadagni, 388
James I, 436, 456
Jangala dynasty, 555
Janids, 186
Japan, 1-56, 96, 102, 112-115,
117-121, 141, 176, 204, 210, 213-
215, 221, 226, 233, 324, 344, 409,
451, 453, 454, 535, 550, 570, 577,
604, 606
Japan, Sea of, 12, 114,117
Japanese, 1-56, 96, 102, 117, 118,
120, 121, 130, 214, 215, 322,
324, 542, 570, 571
Japara, Treaty of, 558
Jarvis, James J., 319, 320
Jaswant Rao Holkar, 473, 474, 478
Java, 101, 130, 409, 453, 458, 464,
514, 537-539, 541, 545-563, 567,
568, 573, 597
Javanese, 543, 547, 552, 554-561,
563, 564, 567, 569, 575
Jaxartes, 126, 144, 180, 196, 362,
363. See also SYR DARIA
Jayapangu, 568
Jayawarman V, King, 519
Jeho, 109
Jehorum, 589
Jehoshaphat, 589
Jelal-ed-din Mankburni, 172, 175,
422
Jellalabad, 484
Jenks, E., 259, 274, 277, 280, 291
Jesuits, 12, 24, 25, 27, 102-104, 314,
341, 342, 452, 455, 571
Jettha Tissa I, 505
Jey Singh II, 444
Jhan-si, 492, 493
Jihangir, 108
Jilolo, 567
Jimmu, 5-7, 14, 16
Jina (Mahavira Wardhamana),
402, 403
Jingi kuan, 16
Jodhpur, 478
Johnston, Major, 260
J-oi, 45, 50
Jokjakarta, 559
Juan Fernandez, 317
Juangs, 360
Judd, Dr., 322
Jui Tsung, 91
Juji (Suschi), 181, 182
Jumna, 359, 364, 369-371, 389,.
407, 421, 427, 430, 474
Jung, 59, 71, 75
Jung, Karl Ernil, 245, 250, 321
Juntoku, 21
Justin II, 159
Justinian, 594
Jutsze Yiiig, 79
KAAHUMANU, 321
Kabir, 410, 444
Kada, 44
Kadiri, 556, 558
Kafiristau, 433
Kafur, 510
Kaga, 37
Kagoshima, 24, 47
Kai-chau, 116
Kaifougfu, 93, 94, 175
Kaiseng, 116
Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, 233
Kaisun (Hai Shan, Wu Tsung), 97"
Kakyes, 60
Kalah, 596
Kalakaua, King, 322, 326
Kalaunuiohua, King, 319
Kaldan Khan, 190, 192
Kaleimoku, 321
Kalgan, 101
Kali, 412, 413, 481
Kali Ghat, 459
Kalidasa, 418
Kalinga, 351, 378, 388, 425, 498,
505, 509
Kalki, 411
Kamakura, 11, 18, 20-23, 31
Kamar ed-diii of Kashgar, 183
Kamchatka, 200, 204, 213, 214,
216, 219, 220, 221, 227
Kamehameha I, 233, 319, 320
Kamehameha II, 320, 321, 340
Kamehameha III, IV, V, 321, 322,
341
Kami, 5, 9
Kamida, Fort of, 49
Kamma (Karma), 370, 397, 402
Kampfer, 4
Kumriiu, 431
Kanagawa, 43, 45
Kanai, 319, 320
Kanara, 388
Kanauj, 410, 420, 421, 431
Kandaliar, 83, 431, 433, 438, 439,
482-484
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
627
Kandapura, 402
Kaudy, 505, 511-514
Rang hsi. See SHENG Tsu
Kang wen, 1 1 7
Rang Yu Wei, 54, 1 1 1
Kanghis, 3
Kanishka, 407
Kan.su, 58, 75, 78, 82, 92, 93, 95,
107, 110, 114, 124, 125, 132, 140,
147, 195
Kanwa, 406, 430
Kao Han. See Lu HAN
Kao Huan, 89
Kao Huang ti. See NCRCHAZI
Kao Li tze, 91
Kao Ti. See KAO Tsu and WEN
Ti
Kao Tsu, 77, 80, 89, 90, 93
Kao Tsuug, 90, 91, 94, 98, 107
Kao Yang, 89
Kao Yun, 88
Kapilavastu, 82, 390, 395
Kapiolaui, 323
Kara (Korea), 8
Kara Khitai. See KHITAN
Kara Koiulo, 186
Karakorum, 95, 96, 99, 172, 176,
178, 179, 191, 192
Kara Yusuf, 180, 186
Kararani. See SULAIMAN KHAN
Karashar oasis, 125
Kargalik oasis, 125
Karini Khan, 477
Karma. See KAMMA
Kama, 370
Karo, 35, 36
Karrak, 423
Kartavirya, Prince, 388
Kasan, 182, 207
Kash, 182, 183
Kashgar, 107, 125, 147, 149, 152,
157, 168, 171, 174, 181, 183, 192,
195, 190
Kashiapmadanga, 82
Kashmir, 166, 187, 352, 354,364,
378, 407, 409, 410, 416, 420, 433,
437, 485
Kiisi, 371
Kasim of Bengal. See MIR
Kassapa, Buddhist. See KASYAPA
Kassapa, king of Ceylon, 506
Kassapa IV, 506
Kasunoki Masahige, 22, 23
Kasyapa, 393, 400
Katakana script, 6
Kathiawed, 406
Kato Kiyomasa, 12, 32, 118
Kattak. See ORISSA
Kattigara, 592
Kaufmann, Gen. Konstantine von,
223
Kaurawas, 370
Kawachi, 5
Kawazi, 22
Kaya, 8
Keane, Augustus H., 131
Keane, John, Lieut.-Gen., 483
Kei Kobad. See Mo'izz ED-DIN
Keiko, Emperor, 7, 9
Kekuaokalaui, 321
Kempermanu, 38
Ken A(ng)rok, 556
Kendall, missionary, 333, 334
Keng Ki mau, 106
Keng Tsing chung, 106
Kerait, 171, 172, 174
Kermadec Islands, 332
Kern, H., 547
Kertarayasa, 556
Kerulen, 174
Ketboga, 179
Ketteler, Klemens von, 1 1 1
Khagatai, 99
Khalil, 186
Khalka, 95-106
Khama Rajendra Wodeyar, 481
Khansu, 596
Kharismia, 95, 155, 159, 171, 172,
174, 183, 194
Kharizm, 421, 422
Khatmandu, 476
Khazars, 216
Khedive Ismail, 610
Khiang, 148, 163
Khilji, House of, 419, 424-426
Khitan, 57, 92-94, 116, 117, 161,
164, 170, 171, 211, 525
Khiva, 155, 172, 183, 197-199,219,
222, 223, 224, 407
Khmer, 516, 519, 524-526
Khojent, 222
Khokand, 107, 125, 195, 197, 199,
222, 223, 407
Khonds, 352, 486
Khorasan, 90, 180, 184, 186, 196
Khotan, 157, 166, 167, 186, 195,
407
Khudayar of Khokand, 223
Khusrou, 438
Khusrou Malik, 421
Khusrou Shah. See NASIR ED-DIX
Khyber Pass, 483, 484
Ki,*71, 72
Ki jun of Chosen, 115
KiTsze, 115
Kia, King, 105, 108
Kianchau, 1 1 1
Kiang River, 58
Kiang hung, 528, 529
Kiang-ning, 83
Kiangsi, 78, 90, 101
Kiangsu, 58, 71, 76, 78, 92, 97,
107
Kibi, 5
Kieff, 172, 175
Kien Tsien Kio. See KOZULO
K \ ITIIl-l -
Kien lung, 68, 78, 105-108
Kiho, 98
Kii, 5, 36, 39, 40, 44, 45, 48
Kikata, 356
Kikiokikunoma, 37
Kilwa-Kisiwani, 598
Kim, 121
Kim Wan Kieu Tan Truyen, 532
Kimmei, Emperor, 10, 16
Kimos, 573
Kin, 50
Kin Li, 159
Kin sha kiang, 58
Kin Tarters (Nu chi), 94-96, 101,
117, 164, 170, 171, 173-176, 209,
211,212
Kinau, 321
King, Philip Gidley, 255, 257,
259-262, 272, 273
King chin, King, 69
King George's Sound, 271, 281
Kingsland, 339
Kinoshita Tokichiro. SeeHiDEvo-
8HI.
Kioto, 9, 11, 17, 18, 20-24, 30-34,
39, 40, 46-48, 50
Kipchak, 180, 181, 182, 184, 186,
197, 207
Kirata, 371,411,412
Kirgis (Hakas), 60, 127, 129, 160,
161, 170, 171, 195-198, 206-208,
221, 223
Kiria, oasis, 125
Kirti Sri raja Simha, Ceylon, 510,
513
Kisil Su, 147
Kistna. See KRISHNA
Kita Shirakawa no miya, 40
Kitan-Tartars. See KHITAN
Kitsze, 4
Kiu-yung Kuan, 165, 168
Kiying, 105
Kiyomasa. See KATO
Kiyomori, 17, 18, 30
Kjeng Kwi, 117
Kjeng sang, 117
Kliasma, 175
Klings, 351
Klisma, 594
Ko, 15
Ko, king, 359
Ko lo lu. See QUARLUK
Ko to lo. See QDTLUQ
Kobe, 49
Kobodaishi. See KUKAI
Kohani (Rohini), 390
Kohinoor, 430, 487
Kohistan, 486
Kohlbrugge, J. H. F., 539
628
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Index
Kojiki, 644
Kokio, 21
Koko-pok-guru, 2, 215
Kukomi Puhai, 116
Kokushu, 34-39
Kolamba (Ceylon). See COLOMBO
Kolao Hui, 110
Kolarians, 353, 360
Kolya, 390
Kolyma, 220
Koinei, 48
Koiniyo, Tenno, 17, 23
Kouagamana Buddha, 395
Konig, Heinrich von, 455
Konislii Yukinaga, 32, 118
Konkan, 425
Konogatari, 19
Konoye, Emperor, 17
Kora, 465, 468
Korea, 1,3-5, 7-10, 17, 21, 23, 28,
31, 32, 41, 51-54, 59, 79, 90, 96,
101, 102, 110, 111, 114-121, 141,
156, 176, 210,211,225,226,542
Korea, Straits of, 1
Koriaks, 214
Korkay, 386
Kosala, 371
Koshito, 2
Kotoku, Emperor, 15, 16
Kotta, 511
Kotzebue, Otto von, 221
Koxinga, 106, 570
Koya Mountain, 11
Kozolu Kadphises (Kieu Tsien
Kio), 144, 407
Kozuke, 22
Kozum Khan, 208, 218, 219
Kramer, Augustin, 324
Krascheninnikov, Stephen, 214,
221
Krasnoiarskoi, 206
Krasuovodsk, 224
Krishna, 359, 370, 378, 388, 408,
411,428,440, 446,462, 547
Kroma Mom Chit, 528
Krusensteru, Ritter von, 221
Kshatriya, 374, 375, 377, 379-381,
387-390, 402, 404, 405, 414, 430,
441, 442,520
Ktesins, 404
Ku Kung, 6fi. See TAN FU
Ku liang, 66
Kuan Ti, 86
Kuan Yu, 86
Kublai Khan, 21, 60, 84, 85, 96,
117, 176, 177, 180, 182, 188, 192,
525, 556, 596
Kudiar, oasis, 125
Kudara, 8, 10, 116
Kudikal, 356
Kuei, 103
Kuei chi, 88, 106
Kuenlun Mountains, 58, 71, 123,
124, 125, 138, 145
Kuge, 16, 17, 34, 35, 37-40, 47, 51
Kui, 516
Kukai (Kobodaishi), 11
Kukaku, 36
Kuku Nor, 211
Kulasekhara, King, 386, 508
Kuljar, 223
Kultegin, 159, 160
Kumauo, 5, 32
Kumaoso (Kumaso), 5, 7, 9
Kumara Dasa, 506
Kumarila, 410
Kumaris, 95
Kumaso. See KUMAOSO
Kumi gassira, 37
Kung, King, 69
Kung fu tsze, 3, 64-67, 69, 71-73,
94, 104, 112, 152
Kung Ming. See CHU KO LIANG
Kung, Prince, 109
Kung Ti, 88, 90, 95
Kung Tsze kia yu, 66
Kung wo, 116
Kung yang, 66
Kungsi, 107
Kuo Wei. 93
Kupaug Timor, 554
Kurd-Cabul Pass, 484
Kurdistan, 184
Kurg, 354, 357, 471, 481
Kurgan, 221
Kuriles, the, 2, 214, 215
Kurku, 360
Kurtid Ghagath ed-din Pir Ali, 184
Kuru, 369-371
Kurumbas, 350, 388, 429
Kusagesaka, 5
Kushaua, 407
Kushlek, Khan, 171, 172
Kusinara, 393
Kusunoki Masahige, 22, 23
Kutb, Shah of Golconda, 428
Kutb ed-din Eibek, 421, 422
Kuweni, 498
Kuyuk Khan, 96, 99, 176
Kwambaku, 16, 32, 33
Kwammu, Emperor, 11, 12, 14, 17
Kwang chau f u, 111
Kwang hai, 117
Kwang hsii, 78, 111
Kwang si, 58, 60, 77, 79, 101-103,
108, 109, 515, 533
Kwang tsze, 67
Kwang tung, 60, 77, 79, 84, 92,
95, 101, 103, 106, 515,533
Kwanrei, 23
Kwanto, 17, 18, 20, 25, 34, 39
Kweichau, 60, 101, 106, 107
Kwo Tsze-i, 91
Kwo Tze King, 97
Kyushu, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 17, 19, 21,
23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 39, 96, 215
Kyrylun. See KERULEN
LA TSANG, 190
Labaum, 565
Labong, 525
Lagree, Capt. Dontard de, 533
Lagre'ne', de, 105
Lahore, 172, 405, 419-422, 428,
430, 431 , 436, 437, 445, 482, 485-
487
Lahore, Viscount. See HARDIXGE
Laji Tissa, 503
Lake, General, Gerard, 474, 475,
479
Lakshmi, 412
Lala, 497, 498
Lallah Rookh. See TRCKANIXI
Lally-Tollenclal, Count, 462-464
Lamaisim, 85, 188-191, 194, 409
Lambert, Lamotte, 527
Lamgan, 420
Lampong, 562
Lancaster, James, 456
Land, 16, 19, 34, 42, 51, 63, 80,
264-269, 276-279, 281-286, 291-
294, 336, 337, 435
Landak, 563
Langson, 534
Lanka, 498, 499, 509
Lanne, William, 249
Lansdowne, Marquis of, Henry
Fitzmaurice, 493
Lao, 516, 517, 519, 525, 526, 528,
530, 531, 534
Lao Tsze, 64, 66, 67, 72
Lape'rouse, Count, 325
Laperouse, Strait, 1
Lapierre, Commodore, 532
Laplace, Captain, 316
Lapp, 203
Larike, 498
Lassen, Christian, 361
Launceston, 259, 274, 296
Lawrence, Henry, Col. Sir, 486,
487, 491
Lawrence, Baron, John, 487, 492,
493
Lawrence, Major Stringer, 460-462
Lawson, colonist, 261, 270
Le dynasty, 530, 531, 533
Le Lo, 530
Le Maire, J., 311
Le Phung, 533
Leang, 73
Leemans, Conrad, 557
Leichardt, Ludwig, 271
Lelieur de Ville-sur-arc, Captain,
532
Lembong Mangkurat, 563
Lemuria, 572, 573
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
629
Lena, 215, 219
Lendeufeld, Robert von, 333
Lescheiiault district, 282
Lesseps, Count Ferdinand de, 610
Lewis Pond Creek, 289
Lhasa, 162, 163, 190, 191
Lhasa, Raja of, 191
Li (A imam), 530
Li (Chin), 60
Li (Korean), 121
Li Fu Kuo, 91
Li Hung Chang, 52, 53, 114
Li Ki, 65, 68, 70, 80
Li Shi Min. See TAI TSDNG
Li S/e, 75
Li Tai Peh, 91
Li Tsun hsu, 92
Li Tsung, 95
Li Tsze cheng, 102, 106
Li Wang, 71
Li Yuan, 90
Liang, 78, 87-90, 156, 157
Liang dynasty, 83, 85, 89, 92, 544
Liau, also Khitau, 57, 92, 93, 94,
117, 212
Liau chan, 60
Liautung, 53,78,94, 101,110,116,
119, 175, 211, 212
Liegnitz, 175
Lieh yu kan (Licius), 67
Lientung, 62
Light, Colonel, 284
Ligor, 518, 525
Liki. See Li Ki
Liliuokalani, Queen, 323
Ling Ti, 81
Ling Wang, 69, 71
Lingan, 411,412, 519, 524
Linschoten, Jan Huygen van, 453
Lions, the, dynasty, 498
Lisbon, 452, 453
Literature, 12, 17, 19, 44, 65, 66,
76, 79, 82, 85, 90, 91, 94, 96, 112,
179, 415-419, 432, 490, 532
Liu, 86-88
Liu hsien, 81
Liu Hiian, 81
Liu Kao, 93
Liu kiu, 5, 51, 101, 110
Liu Pang, Duke of Pei, 76, 77
Liu Pei, 81, 86-88
Liu Tsung, 95
Liu Yu, 88
Liu Yuan, 88
Livadia, 110
Liverpool Plains, 263, 271, 279
Lo, River, 62
Lolo, 59, 60
Lo yang, 71
Lob-nor, 145, 152
Lodi (Lodhi), House of, 419, 428,
430, 432
Lombok, 568
London, 258, 259, 262, 275, 284,
291, 328, 340, 457, 477, 534, 553,
561
Lonsdale, Captain, 278
Lord Howe Island, 298
Loyalty Islands, 341
Louis Philippe, 343
Louis IX, 99, 100
Louis XIV, 464, 527, 531
Louis XVI, 471
Lu, 59, 65-69, 71, 72, 106
Lu, Prince of Shang, 63
Lu fang, 81
Lu hau, 77, 79
Lu pan slmn. 95
Lu Pu, 86
Lu Shin, 95
Lucknow, 444, 491, 492
Lumbini, 390, 395
Lun Yu, 66, 80
Lunalilo, 322, 323
Lunchaufu, 75
Lung chi, 91
Lung yo, 88
Luzon, 2, 569, 570
Lyons, Council of, 98
Lytton. See BULWER
MA HUAN, 101, 115, 116
Mabushi, 44
Macao, 28, 103, 104, 451
MacArthur, Maj.-Gen. Arthur, 572
MacArthur, John, 257, 258, 260,
275
Macartney, George Viscount, 108
Macassar, 552, 565-567, 569
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 466
McKinley, President William, 323
Macnaghten, William, 483
MacPhersou, John, 486
Macquerie, Lachlan, 260-263, 274,
275, 291
Macquerie Harbour, 274, 275
Madagascar, 535, 536, 538, 540,
542, 565, 572-578, 581, 583, 584,
585, 587, 600, 603, 608, 609, 610
Madeira, 608
Madhya-desa, 371, 518
Madras, 350, 353, 354, 411, 454,
457, 459, 460, 462, 463, 467, 470,
472, 473, 475, 476, 479, 491, 524
Madura, 496, 506, 508, 513, 558,
559
Maes, Macedonian merchant, 147
Magadha, 348, 371, 390, 391, 392,
396, 402, 405-407, 415, 505
MagalhSes (Magellan), 550, 570,
594
Magha, 509
Magyars, 127, 129, 175, 204, 205,
206
Mahabat Khan, 436, 437
Mahabharata, the, 57, 369-374,
377,378, 385, 416, 417
Mahudeva, 362,411,412
Mahfidevi, 412
Mahakfila, 411,412
Mahanadi delta, 371
Mahanama (Ceylon), 505, 511
Mahftrftjpnr, 485
Maharastra, 441
Mahfirattaku (minister), 503
Mahaseua (Ceylon), 505
Mahavira, 403
Mahawansa, 497, 502, 503, 507,
510-512
Mahay an a, 409
Mahayogin, 411, 412
Mahdism, 611
Mahendrawarman, 525
Mahinda, 388, 415, 501, 505
Mahinda IV, 506, 509
Mahmud Lodh, 430
Mahmud of Trausoxiana, 183
Mahmud Shah II (Bahmani),428
Mahmud Shah II (Mameluke).
See NASIR ED-DIN
Mahmud Shah II (Tuglak), 427
Mahmud Shah of Acheh, 561
Mahmud Yamin ed Dowlah of
Ghazni, 420, 421, 423, 424
Mahratta, 388, 425, 440-449, 458,
461, 462, 463, 468, 469-475, 477,
478, 480, 491, 493, 531
Maigrot, Bishop, 101
Maitreya, 400
Makdichu, 598
Mai Paharia, 352
Malabar, 349, 354, 355, 357, 388-
389, 451-453, 456, 471, 498, 503,
506, 596-603
Malacca, 451, 453, 511, 513, 521,
523, 525, 526, 538, 543, 544, 546,
548, 549, 550, 552, 557, 560, 561,
565, 572, 573, 584, 585, 592, 593,
596, 597, 612
Malacca, Strait of, 561
Malava, 408
Malavikagnimitra, 418
Malay, 3, 5, 59, 215, 231, 241-243,
305, 306, 308, 475, 495, 504, 509,
513, 516, 521, 535-539, 541-575,
584, 585, 586, 593, 597, 598, 600,
603, 613
Malay Archipelago, 536-538, 541,
543-574, 582, 583, 587, 593, 597
Malaya Desa, 509, 520
Malcolm, Col. John, 476
Malietoa Laupepa, 326, 327
Malietoa Talavou (Pe'a), 326, 327
Malikpur, 172, 422
Malindi, 598
Malkhed, 408
630
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Index
Malva, 422
Malwa, 423, 424, 431, 433, 444, 447,
44S
Mameluke, 419, 422-427, 604
Man, 59, 81
Mauaar, 386, 387, 506, 508, 511
M:\mibharana, 506, 507, 508
Miiuawa, 374
Manchaba, 522
Mam-hii, 3, 44, 59, 119, 209, 212,
220, 226
Manchu dynasty, 65, 78, 85, 94,
102, 103," 105-109, 112, 189, 192,
193
Manchuria, 4, 53, 54, 57, 59, 102,
114, 140, 155, 161, 169, 209, 210,
211, 213, 220, 226,228
Mandala, 386
Mandalay, 523, 524
Mang, 72, 79
Maugalore, 467, 470
Mangites, 186, 199
Maugku Bumi, 559
Mangu Khan, 96, 99, 100, 117, 176,
177, 179
Manihiki Islands, 332
Mauikpur, 423
Manila, 570-572
Manji. See MANZI
Manjusri, 409
Mantra, 374, 412
Manu, 57, 374-377, 380, 382, 417,
588
Manzi, 57
Mao, 59
Maori, 233, 302, 304, 317, 331-339
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 546,
592
Marcuse, Adolph, 323
Marianne Islands, 230, 305, 309,
314, 324, 342, 343
Marquesas Islands, 307, 315, 319,
334, 341
Marsden, Samuel, 334
Marsh. Othniel Charles, 537
Marshall Islands, 301, 305
Martaban, 523
Martin, 460
Maruts, .'{G7
Marwar, 433
Ma<ago, 20
Ma-ahige. See KCSUNOKI
Masayuki, 2.'J
Mascarenes, 573, 578, 579
Mascarenlias, 1'ero, 578
Maasagetae, 134, 135, 143, 146
M.i-sowah, 595
Masulipatam, 457, 458, 463
Mataafa, .-{27. 328
Matan (Borneo), 550
Matan (Philippine), 561
Mataram, 558, 559
Matra, Mr., 254
Matsya, 371
Matthews, General, 470
Mattra, 440, 446, 447
Matuanlin, 6, 7
Mimes, King, 407
Maui, 319, 320
Maurennahar, 180, 197
Maurice, Prince, 551
Mauritius, 453, 459, 460, 464, 472,
475, 552, 577, 578, 579, 608
Maurya alphabet, 395
Maurya dynasty, 405-407, 506
Maya, 390, 395
Mayo, Count, Richard Southwell
Bourke, 493
Mayotta, 578
Me chun (Me tsu), 159
Me ki, 159
Mecca, 432, 434, 453, 457
Medes, 143
Mediterranean, 253, 300, 320, 350,
351, 356, 449, 580, 581, 582, 587,
589, 590, 594, 596, 599, 602, 604,
610
Meerut, 490, 491
Megasthenes, 387, 406
Mei Hi, 63
Meinicke, Karl, 309, 318, 329
Mekong, 347, 515, 516, 520, 528,
529, 532, 533
Melanesia, 230, 232, 242, 243, 300,
301, 305, 308-312, 324, 343, 535,
538, 539, 541, 542, 572, 584, 585,
613
Melbourne, 243, 259, 270, 271, 278,
279, 289, 290, 295, 296
Melville Island, 279
Menabe, 575
Menam, 515, 516, 520, 525, 528
Menando, 565-567
Menaugkabau, 543, 550, 560, 597
Mendang Kamulan, 555
Menderaji, or Mentaragyi Pran,
522
Menezes, 451
Meng dan Meng, 523
Meng ko. See MANGU KHAN
Meng Tsze, 65-67, 70, 73-75
Meugyitsauke, 521
Mentara, King, 521, 526
Menuthios, 572
Mergui, 516, 522, 527
Meru, Mountain of, 370, 509
Merv, 198, 224, 421
Mesopotamia, 180, 587, 593, 612
Metcalfe, Charles, 485
Metcalfe, Lord, 481
Mete, 140, 141
Me war, 423, 430
Mi Tih, 74
Miiini, 484
Miaotsze, 59, 60, 101, 107, 108
Michizanc, 17
Micronesia, 230-232,300,301, 30:i-
305, 308, 309, 313-314, 343, 540,
547, 585
Middleton, Sir Henry, 456
Midnapur, 464
Migne inegue, 532
Miidera, 22, 23
Mikado, 3, 6, 12, 13, 15-17, 20-2.3,
29, 36-41, 44, 45, 47, 49-51, 53, 55
Military duty, 35-37, 68, 77, 93,
295-297, 388
Millot, General, 534
Mimizuka, 32
Min, 92
Min (Korean), 120
Min chau, 75, 88
Min Ti( Chinese), 88
Minahassa, 567
Minamoto, 11, 15, 17-22, 32, 33
Minatogowa, 23
Mindanao, 536, 570, 571
Mindon Min. See MENG i>v\
MENG
Mines, 132, 239, 332, 350, 562
Ming, 31, 78,97, 100-102,106, 117,
119, 188, 192, 193, 212, 530,545,
597
Ming Shen, 101
Ming Ti, 81, 82, 90, 152
Ming Tsuug, 97
Ming yu chen, 97
Ming yuan Ti, 89
Miuti (Burmah), 521
Miuto, Lord, 475, 476, 480
Miuusiuk, 204
Miotze. See MIAOTSZE
Mir Jafir, Nuwab of Bengal, 463-
465, 468
Mir Kasin, Nuwab of Bengal, 464,
465
Missionaries, 13, 14, 24-29, 82, 97-
100, 102-104, 113, 114, 120, 169,
315-317, 321, 322, 325, 326, .Tit),
334, 335, 340-343, 359, 490, 500,
501, 523, 532, 546, 592
Missions, 24-29, 82, 97-100, 102-
104, 312, 315-316, 321, 322, 334,
337, 340-342, 454, 528
Mitchell, Major Thomas Living-
stone, 271
Mithila, 371
Mito, 39, 40, 44-46, 48
Mitra, 362, 367, 385
Mitsuhide. See AKESHI
Mitsukuni, 44
Miura, 121
Mo Ti, 92, 95
Mobariz, Mogul ruler, 449
Modyopahit, 543, 549, 556-558,
561, 562, 563, 568
In
dex~\
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
631
Mogallana, 392
Mogul Empire, 429, 443, 446, 448,
456-459, 491
Moguls, 354, 424-427, 433, 434,
442, 448, 456, 482
Mohammed, 180, 434, 548, 575,
594, 595, 598
Mohammed Akbar (Timurite),
440, 442
Mohammed Ali of Carnatic, 461,
462
Mohammed 'Azim Shah (Timu-
rite), 443, 459
Mohammed Bahadur Shah II, 488,
491, 492
Mohammed Cambakhsh, 442, 444
Mohammed Farrukhsiyar, 443-
445, 448, 449
Mohammed Hakim, 433
Mohammed ibn-Bachtyar, 421
Mohammed II, ibu-Tughlak, 346,
426, 428
Mohammed Kasim Hindushah
Firishtah, 423
Mohammed Khan, 423
Mohammed Mu'azzem Shah 'Alam
Bahadur Shah I, 440, 443-445
Mohammed Muhi ed-din Aurang
zeb, 'Alangir I, 439-446, 448,
449, 457-459
Mohammed Nekhusuyar, 444
Mohammed Shah. See ROSHEN-
AKHTAR
Mohammed Shah I. See ALA
ED-DIN
Mohammed Shah (Malay), 548
Mohammed Shah IV (S*eiad), 428
Mohammed Shiabani, 186, 196-199
Mohammed Yakub Bei, 195
Mohammedan, 351,353, 354, 416,
417, 419-429, 438, 439, 440, 448,
459, 466, 467, 470, 471, 475, 490,
496, 510, 558
Mohammedanism, 57, 98-100, 110,
112, 160, 166-169, 176, 177, 180,
181, 183, 188, 192, 194-196, 208,
353-355, 410, 413, 418-429, 444,
472, 543, 545, 548, 549, 555, 557,
558, 561, 563, 566-570, 575, 595,
596, 612
Moi, 516
Mo'izz ed-din Ghori, 421, 422
Mo'izz ed-din Jihandar Shah, 443,
456
Mo'i/.z ed-din Kei Kobad, 424
Mo'izz ed-dowlet Krusrou Shah,
421
Moluccas, 451,453-455, 513, 538,
549-554, 557, 565, 567, 568, 570
Mombasa, 598
Mongama (Borneo), 563
Mongleng, 529
Mongol dynasty, 3, 60, 78, 84, 95-
98,100,112,117, 167, 169-187,
191, 192, 196
Mongolia, 57, 59, 96, 97, 106, 107,
123, 125, 130, 131, 139-142, 153,
155-157, 159, 162, 173, 178, 182,
189, 190, 193, 194, 199, 212, 226,
401, 409, 536, 586
Mongols, 2, 8, 20, 21, 57, 85, 95,
100, 101, 109, 117, 127, 128, 130,
131, 135, 137-139, 141, 142, 158,
160-162, 164, 166, 168-190, 192,
193, 196, 197, 200-207, 209, 213-
219, 306, 323, 345, 346-352, 355,
363, 406, 407, 422, 476, 539, 544,
588
Monogotari and Genge, 19
Mons (Talaings), 516, 517, 520,
521
Monteban, Cousin, 109
Monto, 12
Moravia, 96
Moreton Bay, 268, 276, 279
Mori, 23, 30, 31, 33
Moritz, Governor of Orange, 453
Moriyoshi, 22
Mornington, Earl. See RICHARD
WELLESLEY
Moscow, 218, 219
Moser, Heinrich, 129
Mossman, historian, 259
Motoori, 44
Moulmein, 479
Mount Abu (Further India), 403
Mount Alexander (Australia), 289
Mount Girnar (Further India), 403
Mount Taurus (New South Wales),
257
Mount Wellington (Tasmania),
272
Mozaffar ed-din of Bokara, 222
Mozaffar III Habib of Gujerat,
433
Mozaffar Jang (Delhi), 461
Mozaffarids, 180, 184
Mozambique, 453
Mozzobo, 522
Mritshtshhakatika, 418
Mu, battle of, 59, 64
Mu jung Te, 88
Mu sung, 211
Mu Tsung, 109, 110, 111
Mu Wang, 71
Muang Bang Tapan, 529
Muang lem, 529
Muang Pase, 529
Mudhadji II (Appa Sahib) of
Berar, 477, 478
Mudrarakshasa, 418
Mujiks, 2
Mukden, 212
Miiller, Gerhard Friedrich, 221
Multan, 184, 420, 422, 428, 440,
487
Mundas, 360
Munemori, 18
Miinnich, von, Field-marshal, 221
Munro, Major Hector, 465
Munro, Thomas, 470
Muong Thai, 525
Mura, 36
Murabek Shah (Khilji), 425
Murabek Shah II (Seiad), 428
Murad (Timurite), 434
Murad Bakhsh (Timurite), 439
Muravier, Count Nicolai, 226
Murray, General, 474
Murray River, 236, 237, 263, 271,
283
Murrumbidgee River, 236, 263, 271
Murshibad, 463
Murshid Kuli Khan, 444, 462
Musa, 3
Musashi, 22
Mutsu, Munemitsu, 53
Mutsuhito, 6, 48, 50
Mysore, 354, 388, 406, 425, 428,
441, 449, 466, 467,469-473, 476,
481,500
NADIR SHAH, 199, 445-447, 449,
482, 485
Naga, 358, 400
Naganauda, 418
Nagasaki, 21, 25, 26, 29, 39, 41,43,
50
Nagato, 24
Nagpur, 478, 488, 491
Nahapana, 407
Nai Ma chen, 96, 176
Naidaijin, 16, 30
Naiman mongols, 94, 171, 198
Naini Tal, 477
Nairanjara, 391
Nakamura, 30
Nakasendo Mountains, 18
Nakatomi no Kamatari, 16, 17
Namchao, 525
Namdoji Prau, 522
Namollo, 214
Nan Han, Liang Tang and Yen.
See HAN, etc.
Nan Wang, 74
Nana Sahib, 488. 491-493
Nanak, 444, 445
Nanda dynasty, 405
Naniwa (Osaka), 5
Nanking, 58, 59, 82, 83, 87-89,
94, 97, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109,
110
Nanking Pass, 97
Nanling, 58
Nanshan Mountains, 124, 141
Napier, Sir Charles James, 484
632
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[/n
lex
Napoleon I, 472, 475, 482, 485,
553, 577, 579, 608, 609
Napoleon III, 532
Xara, 11
Narai, 527
Narbacla, 348, 352, 408, 413, 435,
438, 474, 491
Nariakira, 44-46
Narinaga, 45
Narui, 37
Nasir ed-din Khusrou Khan, 425
Nasir ed-din Mahmud Shah, 423
Nasir ed-din Mohammed Iluma-
yun, 430, 431,433
Niisir ed-din Nasrat Shah, 430
Nasir ed-din Sabuketegin, 419,
420
Nasir Jang (Deccan), 461
Nasr Allah of Bokhara, 199
Nataputta, 402. See also JINA
Naulivau, 312
Nayaks, 449
Nay as, 516
Neale, Colonel, 47
Nearchus, 405, 591
Nebuchadnezzar II, 590
Necho II, 588, 590, 598
Negapatan, 460
Negoro Dhigo, 559
Negrier, General, 534
Ni'kiisiyar (Timurite), 444
Nellore, 456, 458
Nepal, 90, 107, 191, 346, 395, 408,
476, 477, 479, 481
Nertchinsk, Peace of, 106
Netherlands, 27, 47, 553, 559, 571
Nevelski Strait, 1
New Caledonia, 232, 250, 300, 305,
311,331, 343
New Guinea, 230, 233, 241, 243,
297, 299, 300, 302, 304, 305, 308,
311,344, 538, 567, 568
New Hebrides, 232, 311, 312, 342,
343
New Holland, 608
New South Wales, 236, 254-270,
272, 273, 275, 277,280,282,286-
290, 293, 296-299, 333, 334, 339
New South Wales Corps, 256, 258,
260
New Zealand, 230-234, 243, 244,
272, 285, 289, 298, 300, 304-307,
310, 313, 326, 331-340, 343, 542
Newcastle (New South Wales), 259
Newman, A. K., 244
Niran-hwei, 78
Nguyen Ange, 531, 532
Nguyen Du Hun tarn tri, 532
Xiruyt'-n Hoan<r, 531
Ni dynasty, 120, 121
Ni kung. See TAX WEN KUNO
Ni Taijo, 117
Nias, 562
Nichiren, 12
Nicholas II, czar, 228
Nicholas III, pope, 100
Nicholson, John, 492
Nicosia, 99
Nido, Korean alphabet, 116
Niegata, 43
Nienfei, 110
Nigantha, 402
Nigliwa, 395
Nigrito race, 516, 537, 538, 555,
569, 573, 574, 585, 586
Nihilist, 229
Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), 3,
6, 7
Nikko, 9, 13, 40, 41
Nile, 590, 591, 610,611
Nilgiri Mountains, 348
Ning hsia, 93
Ning po, 108
Ninh hai, 533
Ninsen Harbour. See CIIELMUL-
PHO
Ninus, 404
Nippon. See Hoc CHAU
Nirvana, 393, 400, 401
Nishada, 356, 359, 371, 378
Nitta, 22
Nitta Yoshisada, 22, 23
Nizam ed din (Mameluke), 424
Nizam of Haidarabad, 445, 448,
449, 461-464, 471, 472, 489
Nizam Iskander II, 428
Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, 428
Nizam ul-mulk, 448, 449
Nobunaga, Ota, 12, 23, 24, 29-32
Nobutaka, 30
Nogais, 207, 208
Nokonoma, 37
Norfolk Island, 255, 256, 258, 259,
268, 272, 273, 276, 298, 312, 318
Noriyori, 18
Norodom I, 533
Noronha, Gov. Garcia de, 451
North Frederick, 514, 498
North Island, 333, 334, 336, 338,
390
Northbrooke, Baron, Thomas
George Baring, 493
Norway, 206, 345
Nott, Major-Gen., 484
Nova, Joao da, 450
Nova Zemblia, 453
Novgorod, 96, 207, 208, 217, 218
Nu chi. See KIN TARTERS
Nuhan, 319, 320
Nuncomar, Nanda Kumar, Brah-
man, 468
Nur ed-din Mohammed Selim
Jehangir, 105, 433, 434, 436,
445
Nur Jehan, 437, 438
Nur-i-Mahal, 438, 456
Nurchazi, 102, 212
Nyassa, 611
Nyauug Mendarah, King, 521
O FANG KUNG, 76
Oahu, 319, 320
Obaid Allah Shaibani, 198
Obi, 89, 207, 218, 219, 229
Oceania, 230-235, 299-344, 53.'),
540, 573, 582
Ochterlony, Major-Gen. Sir David,
476
Odawara, 23, 31
Odontala, Plain of, 58
Odyssey, 498
Oghuz " 1 60
Ogotai Khan, 95, 96, 99, 174, 175,
176, 178
Ogul Haimish, 96, 99
Ohiroma, 37
Oho usu no mikoto, 7
Oishi, 52
Ojin Hachiman, 9
Okhotsk, 213, 219, 225
Okuma, 54
Oldenbarneveld, 551
Olopen, 97, 98
Oman, 548
Omar (Timurite), 429
Omar Khalif, 595
Omar Shah Khildji. See SHIHAB
ED-DIN
Omdurman, 611
Ommeiads, 595
Omphis or Mophis. See TAXILES
Omsk, 221
Omura, 24, 25
On, 207
One Hundred Families (Hiaksai),
116
Ong Khan, 95, 98, 170
Onon, 171
Ophir, 589
Opium Avar, 108
Oraon, 352
Ordan Padjah, 168
Ordo, 140, 172
Orenburg, 222
Orissa, 351, 352, 371, 372, 378,
388, 406, 410, 433, 444, 447, 453,
457, 459, 465, 474, 496, 518
Orkthon, 136, 159
Ormuz, 451, 455, 511,596
Oroka, 37
Oroks, 202, 216
Osaka, 12, 33, 34, 36, 39, 43. 4*. :>0
Osbegs. See UZBEGS
Osman, 127, 160, 184, 205, 253
Ostiaks, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207,
208, 227
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
633
Ota, 23, 30
Ota Nobuhida, 30
Ota Nobunaga. See NOBUNAGA
Otago (New Zealand), 337, 339
Otalieiti. See TAHITI
Otis, Major-Gen. Elwell Stephen,
572
Otomo of Bungo, 31
Otonomiya, 22
Otrara, 172
Oudh, 349, 421, 430, 433, 434, 444,
468, 469, 481, 482, 488, 489, 490,
492, 493
Outram, 491, 492
Owari, 30
Owari, Prince of, 36, 39, 40, 48
Oxley, J., 270, 271, 279
Oxus, 126, 144, 180, 363, 407, 408,
429. See also AMU DARIA
PA LI KIAO, 109
Pa wang. See HSIANG CHI
Pacific Ocean, 1, 58, 211, 213, 219,
225-234, 236, 240, 242, 243, 259,
296, 299-303, 306-308, 318, 320,
323, 324, 328, 332, 342-344, 580-
587, 594-596, 599, 601
Pada, 387
Paderia, 395
Pagan, 479, 520
Pagan Meng, 487, 523
Page, Vice-admiral Theogene
Fran9ois, 532
Paharia, 360
Paidar, 175
Pajajaram, 555, 556
Pajang, 558
Paku Buwono, 558
Paku Buwono III, 559
Pakwa, 62
" Palace of Supernatural Splen-
dour," poem, 69
Palaeo-Asiatic nations, 214-216
Palaka, 566
Palawan, 570
Palembang, 545, 561, 562
Palestine, 179
Pali, 390, 409, 415, 497, 505, 519,
548
Paligars, 449
Palipat, 458
Palk Straits, 494, 495, 506, 510
Pallava, 388, 408
Pallegoix, Bishop, 528
Palmerston, Lord, 609, 610
Palni Mountains, 387, 494
Pamirs, the, 124, 145, 195, 224,
363, 364
Pan Chau, 152, 153, 154
Panchan-Lama, 189
Panchatantra, 417
Piindawa. See PANDU
Pandicazhay, 356
Pandu, sons of, 369-371, 387, 412
Paudu of Madura, 498, 506, 508
Prmdukfibhaya, 499, 500
Pfuiduwasudewa, 499, 500
Paudya, 356, 359, 386-388, 429,
506, 508-510
Pangeran Samatra, 563
Pango-Pango, 326
Pauini, 415
Panipat, 430, 432, 447, 465
Panja, 520, 521
Panku, 61, 62
Panniar, 485
Pantshala, 370, 371, 378
Pao sse, 71
Papeete, 315, 316
Paper, 69
Papuan, 241, 243, 538, 539, 565,
574. See also MALAY
Parakesariwarmau, 506
Paramatta, 291
Paramindr Maha Chulalongkorn,
King, 505, 528
Parangi (Portuguese), Ceylon, 510
Parasara, 417
Parasurama, 374, 410
Paris, Peace of, 464, 475, 491, 571,
607
Parker, E. H., 8
Parkes, Sir Henry, 298
Parrakkama Bahu I (Ceylon),
507-509
Parrakkama Bahu IT, 509
Parrakkama Bahu III and IV, 510
Parry, W. E., 344
Parsees, 351, 352, 354
Parsva, Parsvanatha, 402, 403
Parthian, 144, 155
Parvati, 412
Parvenus, 29, 34
Pasepa, 188
Pasir, 560
Pasuruan, 556
Pataliputra. See PATNA
Paterson, Captain, 256
Paterson, Governor, 273, 275
Patkai Mountains, 347
Patkanoff, 227
Patna, 394, 396, 406, 407, 409, 456,
459, 463, 465, 491, 493
Patoma River, 210
Paul V, pope, 27
Paulet, Lord, 322
Pawa, 393
Pe'a. See MALIETOA TALAVOU
Pechili, 58, 63, 64, 75, 78, 92, 94,
107, 111, 114, 140, 175
Pechili, Gulf of, 58, 175, 226
Peel, Sir Robert, 269
Peel, Thomas, 281
Pegu, 487, 515, 520-523, 526, 527
Peh tsi (Pekchc', Hiak'sai, Ku-
dara), 8
Pei Chan, Chi, Han, Liang, tse,
Yen. See CHAN, CHI, etc.
Pei ti, 88
Peking, 32, 52, 54, 71, 85, 88, 92,
94, 96, 97, 100-107, 109, 111,
118-120, 171, 178, 191, 212, 226,
530
Pelemeh Talaweh, 514
Pelew Islands, 230, 299, 305, 314
Penang, 593
Pepin, 206
Peppe, William Caxton, 395
Pereira, Gonzalo, 550
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, 546
Perm, 212, 228
Perovsky, General, 222
Peroz, King (Sassanid), 155
Perry, Commodore, 45, 47
Persia, 96, 99, 138, 149, 154, 155-
159, 160, 172, 174, 175, 180, 183,
184, 186, 187, 196, 198, 199, 351,
361, 404, 405, 420, 423, 432, 439,
440, 444, 445, 450, 453, 476, 482,
490, 581, 593, 594, 600
Persian, 57, 135, 144, 149, 166, 168,
177, 179, 181, 196, 198, 216, 224,
347, 419, 426, 433, 438, 482,490,
594, 596, 599, 600
Persian Gulf, 101, 451, 490, 546,
548, 581, 583, 584, 587, 589-594,
596, 597, 600, 604, 609, 612
Perth (West Australia), 281, 282
Pescadores, the, 53
Peschal, Oskar, 246, 304, 327, 536,
596
Peshawar, 172, 409, 422, 446, 447,
482-485, 492
Peshora Singh, 485
Peshwa, 446-448, 470, 472, 473,
477, 478, 488, 531
Peta. See PAIDAR
Peter the Great, 217, 219, 221, 320
Phagyi-dan, King, 479, 522, 523
Phang, 58
Phaulkon, Constantine, 527, 528
Phaya Tak, 528
Phayre, Arthur, 523
Phendingkang, 528
Phiatak. See PHAYA TAK
Philip 11,24, 27,452,512
Philip III, 27
Philippines, the, 25, 27, 308, 314,
324, 328, 343, 516, 535, 538, 539,
542, 545, 551, 552, 563, 569-572,
584
Phillip, Arthur, 250, 252, 255, 256,
259
Pho, 58
Phoenicia, 149, 150, 449, 581, 588-
590, 600
•634
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[/n
dex
Phra Chau Phra-satthong, 527
Phra Klang. See PHAULKON
Plira Narct, 526, 527, 531
Phra Phet Ratscha, 527
Phra Huang, 525
Phra Utong, 525, 526
Phucuog, 531
Phyeng-yang, 31, 53, 116, 118
Pierusing, 528
Pigneux de Be'haine, Bishop, 531
Pimihu. See HIMEKO
Piuchau, 70
Pindari, 477, 478, 481
Ping (province), 78
Ping Ti, 65, 79, 80
Ping Wang, 71
Ping Yang, 88
Pingan. See PHYENG-YAKG
Pinto, Fernand Mendez, 24
Pippli (Oressa), 459
Piprawa, 395
Fir Mohammed, 184
Pischel, R., 395
Pitakas, 394, 415, 504
Pitcairn Island, 259, 298, 309, 318,
319
Pithora Ray, 421
Pitt, Willia'm, 470, 472, 474
Piyadasi, King, 395. See also
ASOKA
Plassy, 463-4C.5, 605, 607
Pleyte, W., 540
Pliny the Elder, 150, 591
Plutarch, 405
Pnom Penh, 533
Po, 74
Po ku tu lu, 68
Podolia, 96
Pogge, L., 308
Point de Galle, 51 1
Point Solander, 257
Poland, 96, 99, 175, 181, 227, 229
Poli, 560, 563
Pollock, General Sir George, 484
Polo, King (Borneo), 545, 563
Polo, Maffeo, 96
Polo, Marco, 57, 96, 175, 176, 450,
549, 562, 574
Polo, Nicolo, 96
Polonuaruwa, 506-508, 509
Polynesia, 2, 59, 139, 230-234, 241,
242, .300, 301, 303-315, 318-320,
324, 330-332, 343, 540-543, 565,
585, 601, 613
Pomare I, 11,315, 342
Poniare IV, V, 315, 316
Pompey, 154
Ponape, 309, 314
Pondichorrv, 4GO, 462-464, 465,
47o
Pontianak, 563
Pontus, 154, 253
Poonah, 354, 441, 469, 472-474,
478
Popham, Major, 469
Population, 2, 13, 50, 57-61, 115,
130-136, 215, 228, 229, 240-245,
251, 259, 262, 268, 270, 275, 276,
282, 285, 289, 292, 296, 297,305,
306, 314, 316, 318, 322, 324,332,
339, 345, 346, 350-354, 403, 480,
495, 501, 515-517, 537-539, 555,
564-566, 567, 569, 572-573, 575,
583-586
Porcelain, 68, 113, 149
Port Arthur, 53, 111, 226-228
Port Arthur (Tasmania), 274, 275,
286
Port Dalrymple, 273
Port Essingtou, 271, 279
Port Jackson, 256, 258
Port Nicholson, 336
Port Philip, 259, 269, 271, 272, 277-
279,284. See also VICTORIA
Port Said, 611
Port Stephens (New South Wales),
263
Portland Bay, 277
Porto Novo, 470
Portugal, 46, 99, 100, 342, 343,
350-453, 456, 512, 550, 551, 571,
604, 606
Portuguese, 24-28, 102, 108, 114,
168, 324, 350, 450-453, 456, 459,
510-513, 521, 522, 526, 527, 530,
549-552, 558, 561,562, 566,568-
570, 572, 575, 578, 604-606, 608,
612
Porus, King, 365
Potala, 190
Potau I and II, 338
Pott, Aug., 361
Prajapati, 390, 392
Prakita, 415, 426
Pratisthana, 371
Prayaga, 371, 378
Prester John, 98, 168
Printing, 113
Pritchard, English consul, 313,
316
Prithviraja II, 421
Prithwi Narayan, 476
Priyadarsin, also Asoka, 395
Prome, 479, 487, 520, 521, 523
Prschevalskij, Nikolai von, 193
Prussia, 46, 455, 463
Ptolemy Claudius, 387, 518, 520,
524, 543, 546, 572, 599, 600
Ptolemy II Philadelphia, 590
PuCh'un, 111
Pn hai, 211, 212
Pulo Condore, 531
Pulo Penang, 612
Pumpelly, Raphael, 58
Pundra Banga, 371
Puni, 545, 563
Punjab, 186, 349, 354, 363, 364,
369, 373, 389, 405, 407,409,419,
426, 428, 430, 431, 433-445, 447,
478, 483, 485, 487, 491, 492,496
Punt, 588
Purana, 416
Purandara, 358
Purohita, 366, 373
Puru, 364, 365, 405
Purusha, 375
QUARLUK (ko lo lu), 160
Queen Charlotte's Sound, 336
Queensland, 233, 236, 263, 271, 272,
279, 280, 282, 289, 293, 294, 296-
299
Qui uhon, 533
Quiros, 252, 254
Qutb (Ala) ed-diii Mohammed,
171, 172
Qutb ed-din Amir Timur. See
TlMUR
Qutluq, 159
RADABIA I and II, 576, 577
Raden Patah, 558
Radloff, Wilhelm, 204
Raffel, Dr., 328
Rafi 'ed-darajat, 443
Raf i 'ed-doula Shah Jihan II, 443
Raghnat Rao (Raghuba), 469, 470
Raghuji Bhonsala, 447, 448, 474
Rahula, 390, 392
Raiatea, 307
Rainiharo, 577
Rainilairivbny, 578
Rainitaiarivoy, 477
Raja Bahadur Sahi, 476
Rajagaha, Council of, 393
Rajagriha, 390, 391
Rajana (Rajwansi, Rajputs), 366,
377
Rajataraugini, 416
Rajawali, 512
Rajmahal, 352, 353, 360, 371, 465
Rajput, 377, 421, 426, 430, 433,
437, 440, 475, 476, 478, 482, 485
Rajputaua, 354, 378, 403, 430,431,
440, 491
Rajwansi, 377
Rakshasa, 358, 385, 386, 496
Rakshasa marriage, 379
Rakyah Sultan (Timurite), 429
Rani Raja, 443, 446
Rama, 374, 385, 388, 389, 496
Rama Khomheng, 525
Ramanuja (Burmah), 410, 496
Ramathibodi, King, 525
Ramatshandra, 410
Ramayana, 369, 417, 506
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
635
Ramses II, 590
Ramses III, 588
Rana Sanka, 430
Ra'navalona, 577
Ranavalona II, 577
Ranavalona III, 578
Ranee Gauga Bai, 492, 493
Rangoon, 479, 487, 492, 522-524
Ranikat, 477
Ranjil Singh, 475, 482-484
Rarotonga, 233, 307, 333, 542
Rascli ed-din Khodja, 195
Rashtra kuta, 408
Rasi'a Begum. See RAZIYAH
Rasoaheriua, 577
Ratnapura, 521
Ratnavali, 418
Ratzel, Freidrich, 348, 582
Rayasa. See KEN A(NG)ROK
Raymond, Joachim Maria, 472
Raziyah Begum, 423
Real Compania de Filipinas, 571
Red Sea, 101, 451, 581, 583, 584,
586-591, 594, 599, 600, 603, 604,
609, 611, 613
Rehoboam, 589
Reigiruites, 44
Re'musat, Abel, 67
Remy, historian, 319
Re'uuion, 459, 460, 472, 475, 577-
579
Riazan, 175
Richardson, murder of, 46, 47
Richelieu, Cardinal, 576
Richthofen, F. von, 57, 58, 59, 63,
132
Ridel, Bishop, 120
Ridgeway, Sir Joseph West, 514
Rig- Veda, 368, 369, 373, 375, 378,
415, 416
Riosiu, 5
Ripon, Marquis of, George Fred-
erick Samuel Robinson, 493
Risdon (Restdown), 258, 272
Rishi, 375, 376, 385, 412
Riuuoji no mya, 13
Riuzogi of Hizen, 31
Riviere, Major Henri Laurent, 534
Rizal, Dr. Jose', 571
Roberts, General, 524
Roberts, Mr., missionary, 109
Robinson, George Augustus, 248,
249
Roch. See SHAH RUCH
Roches, M., 29
Rockingham (West Australia),
280
Rodriguez, 579
Roe, Sir Thomas, 436, 437, 456
Roggeveen, J., 311, 317
Rohana, 503, 506, 507, 508
Rohilla, 447, 469, 473
Rohillkand, 491, 493
Rohini, 390
Rokn ed-din Chershah, 177
Komanovski, General, 222
Rome, 10, 19, 24, 104, 150, 153, 154,
202, 387, 411,449,450,546, 581,
591, 593, 594, 602
Ronins, 42, 46
Roper, river, 236
Rose, German consul, 328
Rose, Sir Hugh, 493
Roshen-akhtar, Mohammed Shah,
443, 447
Ross, J., 344
Roya, Mailer, 396
Rudra, 367, 384,411
Rudrawarman, King, 525
Ruizai sect, 1 1
Runin-dei, 395
Russia, 2, 46, 53, 54, 58, 96, 99,
111, 121, 126, 138,175, 176, 181,
182, 191, 193-195, 197, 207, 214-
229, 243, 320, 321, 324, 336, 343,
463, 476, 482,483, 606, 612
Russians, 45, 46, 54, 96, 106, 108,
172, 199, 212, 214-229, 482, 483,
612
Ryoshu, 34-36
Ryswick, Peace of, 460
SA, Gabriel de, 452
Saavedra, Don Alvarado, 319
Sabutegin. See NASIR ED-DIN
Sacae, 134, 407
Sacred Edict, 106
Sada Siva, 411
Sadaijin, 16
Sadat, 444
Saddha Tissa, 503
Sadhyas, 375
Sado, 25, 33
Sadon, 520
Saga, Emperor, 1 1
Sagausk Mountains, 124
Saghalien, 1, 130, 202, 213, 215,216
Sagoin, 521
Sahib. See NANA SAHIB
Saho (Mahratta), 446, 447
Saigo, 48, 51
Saigon, 532, 533
St. Helena, 608
St. Lazarus, 570
Sainte Marie, 575-577
St. Petersburg, 110, 221, 224
St. Vincent, Gulf of, 283
Saka chronology, 525, 556
Sakai, 39, 43, 49, 516
Sakalavas, 574-576
Sakti, 412
Sakuntala, 418
Sakya, 390, 395, 402
Sakva Muni, 390
Sale, Gen. Robert, 484
Salem, 388
Salim Shah, 431
Salmanassar II, 404
Salsette, 451, 455, 469, 470
Salwe'n, 347, 479, 515,520
Sama Veda, 373, 416
Samar, 571, 572
Samarkand, 125, 147, 149, 159, 160,
172, 181, 182, 184,185, 198, 199,
223, 224, 427
Samathra, 560
Sambaji, 442, 443, 446
Samboshi, 30
Samghamitta, 505
Samghamitta, 399, 501
Samkhya philosophy, 383
Samoa," 231, 298, 305, 307, 308, 319,
324-328, 330-333, 342, 343, 564
Samoyeds, 204
Samurai, 3, 19, 35, 36, 42, 45, 46,
50,51, 55
San Dico, 572
San Francisco, 323, 324
San Kao Chi, 86
San Louren9o, 575
San Miau, 59
San Thome', 459
Sanapati Bhatarka, 408
Sandomir, 175
Sandoweh, 520
Sandrocottus, 405
Sanetomo, 21
Sang Kui, 190
Sankara, 411
Sankara Acharya, 410
Sanscrit, 166, 356, 359, 360, 361,
376, 386, 388, 415, 432, 498, 506,
518, 519, 524, 547, 556, 566, 573
Santa Cruz, 311, 312
Santanu, King, 369
Sauthals, 360
Saps, 157
Sapta Sindhavas, 364
Sarasvati, 370, 412,415, 421
Sarawak, 564, 565
Sariputta, 392
Sarmatiaus, 134, 143
Sartak Khan, 99, 100
Sarts, 129, 196
Sassanids, 594-596
Satake, 44
Satara, 488
Sat-cho-to, 46
Satnami, 440
Satomenchin, King, 521
Satpura, 348
Satsuma, 23, 24, 46-48, 51, 52, 119
Satuk, 168
Savage Island, 328, 331
Savaii, 307, 319, 325, 327, 328, 333,
542
636
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Index
Sawa, 47
Sawatthi, 392
Saransk Mountains, 124
Si-hall, Adam, 103
Si-hanz, Moritz, 296, 340
Schmidt, Johannes, 361
Schurtz, Heinrich, 244
Scolotae, 134, 143
Si-vthians. 129, 131, 134, 135, 143,
144, 146, 154, 167, 205, 216,347,
406, 407, 409
Seanchkara, 588
Sebu, 570
Secandar, 431
St-clu'lles. See SEYCHELLES
Sechelles, Moreau de, 579
Seddon, Richard, 332
St-tVwide. See TAMASP I
Seiads, House of, 4 19, 428, 444, 448
Seimu, Emperor, 7, 9
Seiwa, 17
Sekiang, 59
Sckigahara, 25, 33
Seleuceia, 591
Seleucus I Nicator, 405
Selim Jehangir. See Ntm EivniN
Selim (Islam) Shah Suri, 431
Seljuks, 160, 421
Selong, 516
Semang, 516
Semarang, 556
Semiramis, 404
Semitec, 133, 135, 351, 355, 449
Semper, Karl, 538
Sena I, 506
Sendsh, 600
Seoul, 31, 32, 52, 53, 110, 115,117,
118, 119
Sepoy mutiny, 489-491
Sepoys, 460
Seimeira, Admiral, 482, 549
Scram, 567, 568, 569
Serampatam (pur), 454
Serendah, 574
Seringapatam, 471, 472
Serrao, Francisco, 550
St-tmu, 9
Setsu, 4, 5
Seychelles, 579
So yvicl Abd ul-Ahad of Bokara,
223
Scyyid Mohammed Rahim Khan,
288
Sha Hao, 62
Shuh Alain I. See MOHAMMED
Shikli Alain II. See ALI (JAIIAR
SlIAH
Shah Jehan I. See SHIHAII EU-
DIN
Shah Jehan II. See RAF! 'ED-
l'»l I. A SlIAIl
Shah Ruch (Roch), 186
Shah Shuja (Afghan), 482-484
Shahriyar, 438
Shaibanids, 179, 186, 196, 198, 199
Shaibek Khau (Mohammed), 186,
196, 198
Shaista Khan, 459
Shaj Bhousla, 441
Shakyamuni, 82
Shamanism, 3, 70, 112, 164-166,
174, 189,358,409
Shamo. See GOBI
Shams ed-din Altamsh, 422, 423
Shan, 517, 519, 521, 523-525, 528,
529
Shan dynasty, 4, 68
Shanhaikwan, 53, 75
Shaug, 59, 63, 71
Shang Chin sie, 106
Shang dynasty, 61, 63, 71
Shang ko hi, 106
Shang Ti, 64, 81
Shaug Tsung, 118
Shang tu, 96, 97
Shanghai, 108, 109
Shansi, 58, 59, 63, 70, 78, 88, 101,
102, 107, 140, 156, 175
Shantung, 58, 59, 62, 64,69,71, 78,
81,86,92, 101, 111,114,140, 175
Shao Kang, 63
Shao Ti, 77, 81
Shark Bay, 253, 263, 282
She, 141
Sheep raising, 61, 143-145, 257,
259, 261, 262, 265-268, 275, 276,
278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 293, 332,
339, 350, 363
Shekli Feizi, 432
Shembuan, 478, 522, 527
Shen Kung, 85
Shen nung, 62
Shen Tsung, 93, 102
Sheng Tsu, 85, 104, 106, 107, 190,
192
Shensi, 58, 59, 70, 78, 82, 89, 90,
92, 107, 110. Ill, 132, 175
Shenyu (Hun), 141
Sheshonk I (Shishak), 589
Shettha Tissa (Ceylon), 505
Shi Huang ti, 65, 75-77, 104
Shi King, 65, 70, 73, 75, 80
Shi Min, 87
Shi Tsu, 81, 85,96,105,106,152, 189
Shi Tsung, 85, 102, 106, 189
Shi tu, 90
Shiba, 13, 41
Shibata, 30, 31
Shih ti, 62
Sliihab ed din (Khilji), 425, 429
Shihab ed-din Mohammed Klmr-
ram Shah Jehan, 437, 439-441,
446, 456, 459, 473, 488
Shiite, 428, 439, 444, 575
Shikken, 21, 23, 38
Shikoku, 1, 2
Shimabara, 26
Shimazu of Satsuma, 31, 33, 39
Shitnazu Saburo, 46
Shimizu, 40
Shimonoseki, Straits of, 47, 53,
111
Shimosa, 22
Shiinpei, 50
Shin, sect, 11-14
Shin ban, 115, 116
Shinano, 51
Shingaikwan, the, 13, 14
Shingkiug, 102
Shingon, sect, 11, 12
Shinno, 38
Shinra (Shiragi), 8
Shinran, 11
Shintoism, 2-4, 11, 13, 14, 26, 29,
30, 44, 56, 204
Ships, 5, 21, 28, 31, 32, 43, 47-40,
51,53, 120, 253, 296, 312, 317,
321, 327, 328, 331, 334, 336, 451,
452, 454, 456, 457, 511-514, 532,
541, 544, 545, 551, 571, 588, 589,
596, 599
Shir Shah (Suri), 431, 435, 436
Shiraki, 6
Shizoku. See SAMURAI
Shodo Shonin, 40
Shogun, 11-13, 17, 18,20-22,30-
33, 36, 37, 39-42, 44, 45, 47-51,
55
Shoja (Timurite), 439
Shore, Sir John, 471
Shotepala (Ying Tsuug), 97
Shotoku, 17
Shouten, W., 311
Shoyo, .'54
Shrader, Otto, 135
Shrenck, Leopold von, 214
Shu, 59, 72, 81, 87, 92
Shu king, 59, 63, 65, 73, 75, 80
Shuja ed-Doula, Nuwab Wa/.ir of
Ondh, 465, 466, 468, 469
Shujaku, 17
Shukarcharya confederacy, 485
Shun, 63
Shun chi, 103, 105
ShuuTi, 89, 97, 101, 192
Shun Tien fu, 107
Sliunga dynasty, 406
Shu-uing, 94, 95
Si Tsing kan kien, 68
Si Wang nm, 7 1
Si Yu, 79
Siam, 58, 103, 395, 400, 409, 453,
513,515-517, 520-522,524 :>29,
531, 533
Siam Thai, 525, 531
Jinli'-r
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
637
Siamese, 60, 517, 519, 524-529,
5:i2
Siberia, 57, 106, 122-125, 130, 155,
160,172, 173, 180, 193, 197, 199-
529, 361
Sibree, James, 574, 575
Siddartha. See BUDDHA
Sien pe, 155, 156, 210, 211
Sihabahu, 497, 498
Sihala (Dipa), 498, 504
Sihasiwali, 497
Sikh, 354, 444, 445, 475, 476, 480,
482, 484-487, 492
Sikkim, 346
Sikri. See FATTEPUH SIKUI
Sila. See SINRA
Silesia, 96
Silk, 68, 69, 114, 145, 146, 149,
151, 159, 594
Sima, 555.
Simajar, 478
Simha I, Ceylon, 510-512
Simha II, 512, 513
Simla, 477
Simoda, 45
Simyu, 356
Siudh, 354,372, 407, 422,427,433,
476, 483, 484, 487
Sindhu, 345, 371
Sindia, 469, 473-475, 477, 478, 493
Singanfu, 64, 70, 76, 80, 89
Singapore, 543, 553, 557, 597, 612
Singhalese, 387, 394, 399, 416, 495-
502, 504, 506-511, 514, 521
Siulo. See SHIRAKI and SINRA
Siumu, Emperor, 11
Sinra, 114, 116, 119
Sir Daria, 172, 197, 222, 362
Sirasanghabodhi. See VIJAYA
BAKU I
Sirhind, battle of, 431
Sirimeghawanna, 505
Sita, 496
Sitanaka, 511
Siva, 353, 362,400, 410-413, 510,
512, 513, 519, 524
Sivaji, 441, 442, 446, 447, 449,
478
Sivaroy Mountains, 494
Sivas, 184
Sivistan, 422
Siwaraga, 555
Sixtus V, pope, 24
Skanda, 411
Skobeleff, 224
Slav, 167, 206
Slave dynasty, 422-424
Slaves, 10, 28, 81, 311, 317
Sleeman, Major, 481
Soarez, Fernando, 575
Soarez, Lopez, 451, 511
Sobraon, 486
Society Islands, 315,316
Sofala", 572, 599, 600
Sofan, 4, 5
Sogdiana, 90, 144, 151, 154, 158,
159, 160,404
Solf, Governor, 328
Solo, 556, 559
Solomon, 589
Solomon Islands, 232, 300, 302,
311, 328, 342
Soma, 367, 368
Somali, 599
Somdet Phra Paramindr Maha
Mougkut, 528
Someswara, King (Chola), 509
Somrath Phra Marai, 532
Songka, 515, 533
Sorai, 388
Sorell, William, 274, 275
South Island, 336, 338, 339
South Sea, 230, 233, 234, 285, 301,
309, 311, 319, 327, 328, 330, 334,
341, 342
South Sea Islanders, 302, 310
Spain, 342, 343, 452, 456, 485, 550,
551, 570, 571, 604
Spangenberg, Martin, 221
Spaniards, 23, 108, 258, 300, 314,
315, 319, 522, 532, 545, 550, 568,
605, 606
Spencer Gulf, 235
Sperausky, Michael, 227
Spice Islands, 453, 498, 549, 550,
552, 568, 606
Spilbergen, Joris van, 512
Sri-Bhodja, 547
Sri Harsha, 418
Sri Raja Adhiraya Simha, 514
Sri Turi Bumana, 543
Sri Wikkama Raja Simha, 514
Sri Wira Parakkama Narinda, 513
Stabrobates, 404
Stanovi Mountains, 213
Steinberger, Colonel, 326
Steller, Georg Wilhelm, 204, 221
Stephens, Thomas, 455
Stewart Island, 336
Stirling, Captain, 280-282
Stock raising, 61, 125-135, 141,
145, 201-203, 206, 209, 210, 219,
281, 282, 284, 291-294, 332, 339,
350, 363, 365, 372, 574
Strabo, 589, 592
Strauss, Victor von, 67
Stroganoffs, 218
Stuart, General, 472
Stubel, O., 324
Sturt, Charles, 271, 283
Su, 73
Su chau, 147
Su ming, 62
Su shih, 93
Su Tsung, 84, 91
Subha, 504
Subrahmanya, 411
Suchin, 210
Sudan, 2<J<;
Sudas, King, 369, 371, 373, 389
Suddhodana, 390, 395
S'udra, 375-381, 383, 401, 405, 409
Sudraka, King, 418
Sueu, King, 74
Suez, 450, 595, 609
Suez Canal, 607, 609-611, 613
Suffren, Admiral, 470
Sugawara, 17
Suh yi, 62
Sui dynasty, 80, 84, 86, 88-90, 96
Sui yen, 62
Suiko, Empress, 10, 15
Suiuin, Emperor, 3, 6, 9
Sujin, Emperor, 9
Sukadana, 563
Sukhodaya, 525
Sukit, 157
Sulaiman ibn-i Abdur-Rahman,
110
Sulaiman Khan Kararani, 433
Sulu Island, 563, 570, 571
Sumatra, 101, 451, 453, 475, 516,
536, 539, 543, 544, 547, 548, 550,
553, 554, 556, 557, 560-562, 569,
573
Sumbawa, 566, 568, 569
Sumera Mikoto, 14
Sumerians, 132, 133
Sun Chiian, 81, 87
Sun fei, 62
Sun Tseh, 87
Sun yun, 83
Sunda Islands, 535, 538, 542, 543,
545, 546, 550, 568, 569
Sunda Strait, 560
Sunda Sea, 583
Sung, 71, 73, 82, 97, 196
Sung dynasty, 57, 82, 88
Sung dynasty, northern, 84, 93,
116, 159, 164
Sung dynasty, southern, 94-96,
175, 177, 178
Suugari River, 59
Sunnite, 198, 575
Sunto, 116, 117
Sura Tissa, 503
Surabaya, 556, 558
Surajah ed-dowlah of Bengal, 432,
463
Surakarta, 559
Surasena, 371
Surat, 441,452,457-459'
Surgi Arjangaou, 474
Sfiri dynasty, 431
Surugu, 33, 39, 40, 44
Surville de, 311
638
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
I Index
Surya, 367
Surya I Vimila Dhamma, 512
Satlej, 430, 440, 485, 486
Suttee, 415, 480, 481, 486
Suyurghatmish, 183
Svetambara, 403
Swahali, 573, 613
Swan Island, 249
Swan River (West Australia), 281
Sweden, 23, 455, 557
Swieton, Lient.-Gen. Ivaii, 561
Sy li Chiao Wei, 78
Sydney, 237, 243, 250, 255, 258,
261," 267, 270-275, 279, 280, 289,
291, 295, 296, 298, 333
Sydney, Lord, 255
Synchronistic tables of rulers of
the Chinese dynasties, 62, 74, 87
Synyangong, 522
Syr Daria. See SIR DARIA
Syria, 98, 100, 126, 150, 169, 176,
177, 180, 184, 253
Sze ma Chao, 87
Sze ma I, 87
Sze ma kwang, 93
Sze ma Tsieu, 75
Sze ma Yen, 87
Szechwan, 58, 60, 78, 87, 92, 97,
101, 102, 106, 107, 148, 176,
177
TA CHIK, 87
Ta Ching dynasty. See MANCHU
Ta Ching kwoh, 57
Ta hio, 66
Ta Hsia. See HSIA
Ta Kiang, 58
Ta Liau, 212
Ta Ming. See MING DYNASTY
Ta Mo (Bodhidharma), 83
Ta Nao, 78
Ta Ti, 87
TaTsiu, 79, 98, 153, 592
Ta Tun.,' (Korea), 115
Ta tung fu (Shansi), 212
Ta yuan, 79
Tachibana Riohei, 7
Tadamori, 17
Tagals, 539, 569, 571, 572
Tagong, 520
Tahiti, 259, 301, 307, 315-319, 334,
341, 342
Tai, 75, 87, 88, 156
Tai chi, 61
Tai-dong-gang, 31
Tai kung, 63
Tai ping, 108-110, 114, 195, 533
Tai slum, 81
Tai ting Ti, !»7
Tai Tsu, 92-94,100-102, 212
Tai Tsung, 84, 90, 91, 94, 95, 98,
101, 174, 212
Tai tung, 68
Tai wen Kung, 52, 120, 121
Taiasu, Prince of, 40
Taibuga, 207
Taide Tristao de, 550
Taiho, 16
Taikosama, 24, 25, 33
Taikwa, 16, 34, 50, 55
Tailapa Deva, 408
Taimir peninsula, 210
Taira, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 44
Taj-i-Mahal, 438
Takamochi, 17
Takatoki, 22
Takauji, 22, 23
Takeda, 23
Taker u, 5
Takiminoma, 37
Taku, 109
Talienwan, 53, 111, 226
Talifu, 110
Taluu (Shelun Zarun), 156
Taniariuomo, 37
Tamasese I and II, 327
Tamasp I Sefewide. 198
Tamatave, 577, 578
Tambora, 569
Tambraparni (Tampanni), 348,
386, 498, 500
Tamerlan (Tamur-i-leng), 184
Tametomo, 18
Tamil, 386, 387, 388, 495, 500,
502-506, 508, 510, 511
Tamir Muni, 386
Tan fu (Ku Kung), 64, 70
Tan ki, 64
Tananarive, 575
Tang, 73, 90, 106, 116
Tang, later, 92, 98
Tang, southern, 92
Tang dynasty, 57, 78, 84, 90-92,
116, 164, 212, 530
Tang Ming Huang, 91
Tang Yin, 57
Tangla Mountains, 58
Tanguts, 95, 164
Tanjore, 449, 454, 464, 473, 488
Tantia Topee, 492, 493
Tantra, 416
Tanu Mafili, 327
Tanva, 312
Tao, 66
Tao Kuang, 105, 108
Tao teh King, 66, 72
Taoism, 64, 66-68, 71, 77, 82, 84,
86, 89, 92, 112
Taprobane, 498
Tapti, 348, 349, 372, 456
Tapussa, 391
Tara Bai, 443
Tarim, 59, 123-125, 136, 138, 141,
142, 145-155, 157, 161, 162, 166-
169, 174, 180, 184, 189, 191-196,
220, 223, 225
Tartar, 3, 70, 74, 76, 78. 87, 88, 91,
92, 94, 112, 141, 142, 145, i;,f,,
168, 170, 171, 177, 198, 204,40(5,
409
Tartar dynasty in India, First,
422-424
Tartar dynasty in India, Second,
424-426
Tartar dynasty in India, Third,
426, 427
Tartar Empire, 207, 208, 217, 218
Tashkent, 125, 159, 197, 199, 222
Tasman, Abel, 252, 253, 333, 607
Tasmania, 240, 242, 243, 247-249,
272-277, 287-295, 298, 314, 336,
339
Tasmauians, 240-242, 243, 246-
249
Tatara (Dudar), 156
Taufaahau. SeeGKOUGE Tuuoul
Taulanga, 331
Taupo, Lake, 339
Tavernier, Jean Baptiste, 438
Taw SeinTho, 519
Taxation, 9, 16, 26, 34, 36, 79, 92,
93, 97, 266, 267, 275, 290, 329,
427,435, 436, 440, 447-449, 463,
468, 470, 471, 474, 480, 486, 493,
509
Taxila and Taxiles, 405
Tay Son, 531
Te Pito te Henna. See EASTER
ISLAND
Te Tsung, 92, 94, 98
Te Wen, 88
Tea, 149, 150, 194, 219
Tegh Bahadur, 445
Teheran, 437
Teignmouth, Lord, 471
Tekanoma, 37
Telegu, 388
Telingana, 437, 547
Temples, 12, 13, 30, 40, 41, 82, 84,
85, 167, 418-420, 422, 424, 440,
501, 513, 519, 520, 547
Tenasserim, 479, 522, 523
Tendai sect, 11, 13
Tenggereses, 539
Ten j in, 9
Tennent, J. E., 512
Tensi, Emperor, 16
Tenson, 9
Terai (Nepal), 395
Teredon, 590
Ternate, 547, 550, 551, 553, 567, 5i>8
Terrieu de la Conperie, 59
Thadominbia, King, 521
Thai, 516, 517, 525, 528, 531
Thakombau, 312, 313, 329-331,
340
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
639
Thar, desert of, 431
Tharawadi, King, 523
That-ke, 534
Theebaw. See THIBAU
Tlieodosius, Emperor, 90
Thibau, King, Burmah, 523, 524
Thie utri, 532
Thierry, Baron, 334, 335
Thin le, 157
Thinai, 532, 533
" Thirteen King," 65
Thompson, William (Wocemu
Kingi),338, 339
Thracian, 143
Three Kingdoms, 86
Thugs, 480, 481, 486
Ti, 59, 70
Ti Chi, 63
Ti hsiang, 63
Ti ku, 63
Ti Kuei, 63
Ti Piiig, 95
Ti Yi, 88
Tian shan Mountains, 125, 140, 144,
145, 147, 157, 163
Tibao, Sebaste Gonzalez de, 522
Tiberius, 592
Tibet, 58, 59, 85, 106, 107, 122,
123, 125, 130, 131, 151, 161-164,
174, 176, 187-194, 346, 351, 354,
401, 406, 407, 426, 515, 517.
Tibetan, 139, 141, 142, 146, 148,
160-164, 172. See also Nu CHI
Tidor, 550, 567, 568
Tie mu chen, 170
Tie murh, 97
Tie shi, 97
Tien, 64, 139
Tien chau, 56
Tien Hia, 56
Tien shun, 101
Tien tsu Huang ti, 94
Tien Wuong, 531
Tientsin, 52, 53, 102, 109, 111, 114,
120, 534
Tigris, 143, 590, 591
Timofeyevitch, Yarmak, 218
Timor, 453, 538, 569
Timur, 96, 97, 169, 181-187, 192,
207, 223, 419
Timur, House of, 182-187, 196,
197, 419-488
Tinian, 309
Ting Tsung. See KUTUK KHAN
Tippu Sahib of Mysore, 470-472,
475
Tissa Mogalliputta, 394
Titianus. See MAES
Titus Flavius Vespasianus, 351
To ba, 17, 21, 156, 164, 211
To Lei. See Tun
Tobi Island, 547
Tobol, 207, 218
Tobolsk, 206, 207, 208, 219
Toda, 357
Todar Mai, 435, 438
Todoyoshi, 22
Toghluq Timur, 183
To-huan (Shun ti), 97, 192
Tokaido, 46
Tokimasa, 18, 20
Tokimune, 21
Tokio, 9, 11, 50, 51, 53
Tokiwa, 18
Tokiyori, 21
Toktamish, 182, 184
Tokugawa, the, 12, 13, 23, 36, 37,
39-45, 48, 49, 119
Tokuzo Fukuda, 9, 10
Tomaschek, Wilhelm, 146, 147
Tomobe, 10
Tomsk, 206, 228
Tonga, 231,307,308,311,313,324,
325, 328-331, 341, 342
Tongatabu, 329, 331, 335, 341
Tonghak, 52, 111
Tongking, 57, 58, 79, 101, 110, 117,
515, 516, 524, 529, 530, 534, 592
Tongra, 157
Topikal, 356
Torrens River, 284
Torres Straits, 241, 252
Tosa, 46, 49, 50
Tournon, patriarch of Antioch,
104
Tozama, 36, 37
Trade, 9, 24, 29, 51, 52, 56, 103,
108, 110, 119, 125, 145-152, 159,
161, 169, 194, 218, 219, 266, 275,
278, 279, 282, 285, 294, 332-334,
339, 436, 449, 452-458, 465, 480,
512, 513, 522, 543-546, 550-556,
564, 567-571, 576,578, 587, 589-
592, 600
Tranquebar, 454, 475
Transoxiana, 180, 189, 420,430
Travancore, 471, 482
Trichinopoli, 461, 462
Trigne dynasty, 531
Trimurti, 367, 409
Trincomali, 511
Tringh. See TRIGNE
Trinil, 537
Tripoli, 100
Tritsu, 365
Trukanini, 247, 249
Truna Jaya, 558
Tsai, 71, 74. See also WEN Ti
Tsai tien. See KWANG HSU
Tsaidam, 148
Tsang ki, 62
Tsang wu wang. See FBI Ti
Tsao, 71, 73
Tsao Hau, 93
Tsao Tsao, 81, 86, 87
Tschekiang, 7
Tscliernajev, Michael, 222
Tschirikov, Alexis, 221
Tse, 72
Tse Liang, 83
Tse wan ta shi. See DAVATSI
Tseng, Marquis, 110, 534
Tshandala, 375, 376
Tsi, 71-73
Tsi Wang, 106
Tsimiar, 577
Tsin, Prince of, 87
Tsin dynasty, 82, 87, 88
Tsin dynasty, later, 93
Tsin kingdom. See CHIN
Tsin Kuei, 94, 95
Tsin Wu Ti. See SZE MA
Tsinai, 7
Tsing, province, 78
Tsiuhai, 109
Tsitsikar, 220
Tsiumeik, Princess, 577
Tso chin ming, 66
Tso Tsung tang, 114
Tsong ko pa, 189
Tsuchi, 21
Tsuda, 30
Tsugaru Strait, 1, 2
Tsukushi, 5, 7
Tsuuemoto, 17
Tsunetoki, 21
Tsushima, 1,21,46, 119
Tsze sze, 66
Tsze Ying, 76, 77
Tu fa. See To BA
Tu fo, 85
Tu myn, 158
Tu Tsung, 95
Tuamotu Island, 301,315,316, 318,
341
Tuan, Prince, 111
Tuan Tung, 95
Tuan Yie', 88
Tubuai Islands, 315, 316
Tuchi (Duchi), 141
Tuduk, 532-534
Tughau Timur. See TOHUAN
Tughlak, House of, 419, 426-428
Tuli (To Lei), 95, 103, 175, 176
Tuman (Denman), 140
Tumen-ula, 114
Tumna, 491
Tun, Prince, 111
Tun huang, 88
Tun shih huai, 1 56
Tung. See KUNG Ti
Tung Chau, 71
Tung chi. See Mu TSUNG
Tung Cho, 86, 87
Tung hu, 140, 141
Tung k wo, 114
640
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
ndex
Tung tu, 71
Tung We, 89
Tungusian, 87, 94, 140, 141, 155,
170, 173, 175, 205, 209-215
Tuiishih huai, 211
Tup Timur, 97
Turanian, 355
Turcoiuen, 180, 186, 196, 198, 219,
223, 224
Turf an, oasis, 125
Turkestan, 57, 79, 96, 107, 108,
110, 114, 124, 125, 129, 131, 135,
138, 139, 166,171-173, 180, 182-
184, 186, 193, 195-199, 217, 222,
2-.':?
Turkestan, East and West, 90, 123,
125, 145-153, 167, 168, 174, 180,
183, 186, 195, 196-199, 226
Turkey, 182
Turks, 91, 92, 127, 129, 136, 139,
147, 156-161, 163, 167-170, 174,
176, 204-206, 209, 211, 406, 420,
424, 426, 445, 448, 549, 604
Turubull, 320
Turner, George, 324
Tumour, George, 497
Turon, 531, 532
Turvasa, 364
Tuschi. See Juji
Tutuila, 324, 326-328, 343
Txvan, 211
Tylos, 587
UA TSONG, 533
Udaijin, 16
Udaya III, Ceylon, 506
Uddaka Ramaputta, 391
Udipur, 433, 437
Udwa Nala (Rajmahal), 465
Udyana, 83
Ugrasena, 568
Uigurians, 82, 95, 152, 154, 157,
158,160, 161, 163, 167-171, 173-
175, 187, 198, 206-208, 211
Ujfalvy, Karl Eugeu, 131
Uji, 10, 14-16
Uju, 503
Ulu Mongol, 197
Unchi Mountains, 5
United States of America, 45-47,
~)-2, 54, 56, 108, 120, 243, 244,
282, 293, 298, 312, 321-324, 326-
328, 330, 334, 336, 343, 470, 551,
602, 606, G13
United Tribes of New Zealand, 334
Universal Dutch United East In-
dia Company, 551, 552, 558, 559
Unoi (Huns), 139
Upfili, 393
Upanishads, 382, 383, 416
Upatissa II (Ceylon), 505
l>.lo, 326, 327*
Urakami, 29
Ural Mountains, 124, 206, 218, 360
Ural-Altai, 135, 154, 206, 360, 361
Uravela, 391
Urban V, pope, 100
Urga, 194
Urgenj, 198
Urhuya (dictionary), 66, 106
Urusau, 32
Usbeks. See UZBEGS
Ushas, 367
Usun, 141, 142, 144, 152, 154
Utsh, 423
Uttararamatsharitra, 418
Uyeno, 40, 41, 49
Uvesugi, 23
Uzbegs, 181, 186, 196-199, 208,
429, 438, 483
Uzgent, 172
Uzun Hasan, 186
Uzziah, 589
VAISYA, 375, 377-380, 382
Vajradhara, 409
Valabhi, 402, 408
Valckenier, Adrian, 552
Van Diemen's Land, 252-257, 263,
272-277, 279, 282, 286. See also
TASMANIA
Vao Nigne, 533, 534
Varuna, 367, 385
Vasantesena, 418
Vasishtha, 369
Vattezhat, 387, 388
Vavau (Tonga), 307, 329, 330
Vaz, Lopo, 451
Vedanta, 383, 395
Vedas, 364, 366, 368, 374, 379, 382-
385, 411, 412, 415-417, 445, 588
Vedda, 358, 360, 495, 499, 573
Vellore, 470, 472, 475
Venice, 450, 452, 581, 604
Versailles, Peace of, 470
Vesali, 393, 394, 402
Viceroys of India, 493
Victoria, Australia, 245, 251, 270-
272, 277-280, 283, 284, 286-290,
292-297, 299, 339
Victoria, Queen, 493
Victoria, river, 236
Vienna, 127, 609
Vijaya, 378, 387, 504-510
Vijaya Balm I, 506, 508
Vijaya Bahu II, III, IV, 509, 510
Vijaya Raja Simha, 513
Vikkama Bahu I, Ceylon, 507
Vikramaditya IV, 408
Vimila DhammaSurya I, 512
Viudhya Mountains, 348, 386, 419,
423, 424
Vipus(Beyeh), 364
Vira Paudu, 508
Visakhadatta, 418
Vishnu, 353, 374, 384, 388, 400,
410-413, 416, 498, 513, 519, 547,
555
Vishnuwardhana, 408
Visivamitra, 369
Vita Levu, 301, 312. See also
FIJI
Vitasta, 364
Vizagapatan, 457
Vladimir, 175
Vladivostok, 226, 228
Vlamiug, Arnold de, 568
Vogules, 203, 207
Volga, 96, 99, 158,205-207, 217,
218
Volhynia, 96
Voltaire, 464
WA. See JAPAN and Wo
Wa-Kwak, 542
Waitangi, 335-337
Waitz, Theodore, 320
Wakamatsu, 49
Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 283-
285, 335, 336
Wakka, 495, 499
Walathawar, battle of, 461
Waldersee, Count Alfred von, 1 1 1
Wallis, Samuel, 315
Walmiki, 496
Wan li. See CHEN TSDNG
Wang, 70
Wang An Shih, 93, 94
Wang dynasty, 113
Wang hien, 115
Wang ken, 116
Wang Mang, 78-81
Wang wen kao, 69, 70
Wanga, king of, 497
Wanyamwesi, 308, 320
Warekauri. See CHATHAM IS-
LANDS
Wardhamana, 402
Wargaon, 469, 470
Wasabha, 504
Wasimba, 573
Wasodhara, 390
Wasuki, Prince, 358
Watson, Admiral, 462
Wattha Gfmiaiii Abhaya, 501, 503,
504
Wayu, 375
Wazir Ali of Oudh, 471
We, 62, 71, 74, 75, 81, 83, 87-S'.i,
156, 157, 164
We dynasty, 3, 6, 82, 87, 89, 158
We men, 115
We, East, 89
We, North, 88
We, West, 89
Wei, 59, 70. See also WE
Index
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
641
Wei hai wei, 111
Wei Hon, 91
Wei River, 70, 76, 82
Weihaiwei, 53
Weiho, 176
Wellesley, Arthur. See WEL-
LINGTON
Wellesley, Baron, Richard Cowley,
472-47*7, 608
Wellington, Duke of, 472, 474
Wellington (Australia), 336, 340
Wen Huang ti, 212
Wen Ti, 77, 80, 89, 90
Wen Tsung, 97, 109
Wen Wang, 64, 65, 70
Wen wu Huang Ti, 177
Wengi, 408
Wentworth, Blaxland, and Lawson
(colonists), 261, 270
Wheeler, Sir Hugh, 49 1
Whish, General, 487
White Horde. See HORDE
White Huns. See HUNS
White Lilies, 108
White Sea, 219
Wideha, 371
Wihara, 371
Wijaya, 498-500, 504
Wijaya II, 505
Wikramorwasi, 418
William I, Emperor, 330
William IV of England, 284, 334
Williams, John, 325, 341
Williamstown, 278
Wilmot, Sir Eardley, 274, 276
Wingchau, 525
Wira-rajendra Wodeyar, 481
Wira-Salamega, 506
Wissmann, 308
Wo, Great (Wa, Japan), 7, 8
Wo k'uo t'ai. See OGOTAI
Wo \vu li hai mi shi. See OGUL
HAIMISH
Wodeyar, 466, 467, 472
Wolf, L., 308
Wu, 71, 74, 81,87, 92, 97
Wu Chao, 90, 91
Wu Cheng sze, 91
Wu dynasty, 87
Wu Hau, 90, 91
Wu hwau, 140,210, 211
Wu ku, 156
Wu San Kuei, 102, 105, 106
Wn Ti, 77-80, 83, 84, 88, 89, 142,
148, 151
Wu 'IV/.e Shan, 69
Wu tsze lieu, 91
Wu Tsung, 84,97, 98, 189
Wu waug, 64, 140
Wu Yue, 93
Wuchang, 58, 59
Wuti, 7
VOL. II — 41
XANAIM:, 9G
Xavier, Francis, 24, 102, 452
Xerxes, 404
Xieng-Mai, 516, 525
YABOLONI MOUNTAINS, 124
Yadawa, 359, 370, 378
Yadu, 364
Yaishan, 95
Yajfiavalkya, 417
Yajur Vedas, 416
Yak, 161
Yakkas, 499
Yakshu, 356, 358
Yakut) Bey, 110, 195, 199, 223
Yakuts, 202, 204, 205, 210, 212,
215, 361
Yakutsk, 219
Yalu, 53, 114, 119
Yama (Yima), 362
Yamashiro, 5
Yamato, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 21
Yamato-dake, 7, 9
Yandabo, Peace of, 479, 523
Yang, 61, 78
Yang chau, 58, 100
Yang Chien, 89
Yang chou. See CHIANG TU
Yang Kwei fei, 91
Yang Ti, 90
Yang Yen, 92
Yangtsze Kiang, 58, 71, 87, 102,
109, 110, 176,347, 515
Yao, 59, 60, 63, 101
Yao Chang, 88
Yarkand, 82, 107, 152, 195, 223,
407
Yasalalaka Tissa, 504
Yasodhama, 408
Yasutoki, 21
Yau chen, 80
Yau yin. See YAO
Year mottoes, 78
Yebis, 4
Yediger, 208
Yedo, 20, 31, 33,37-41, 43, 44, 46,
48-50, 119
Yedo, Bay of, 49
Yedo Michifusa, 44
Yeizai, 11
Yellow Sea, 57, 58, 114, 115, 140
Yellow Turbans, 81, 86, 87
Y61u A pao chi, 212
Yelui Chutsai. See ILICHU TSAI
Yemen, 598
Yen, 71, 75, 78, 88,92, 101, 115
Yen, Northern, 87
Yen, Western, 85
Yen King, 171
Yen Ti. See SIIEN NUNG
Yen tsung, 93, 107, 395
Yen Yen, 155-158, 206, 211
Yenisei, 157, 158, 203
Yenissei Ostiaks, 130, 203, 204
Yesukai (Yissugay), 170
Yesuu Timur, 97
Ye/,o, 1, 2, 45, 49, 130, 213, 215
Y5 Tsung, 84
Yie. See CHANG TE FI:
Yielu Tashi. See TE Tsrv.
Yima. See YAMA
Yin, 61. See also SHANG DYNASTY
Yin ti, 62, 93
Ying, 81
Ying chang, 101
Ying Tsung, 93, 97, 101
Yippen, 12
Yo. See RUNG Ti
Yodo, sect, 12
Yogiui, 412
Yoh Fei, 94
Yokohama, 11, 47
Yorifusa, 44
Yori-iye, 21, 22
Yorinaga, 18
Yoritomo, 11, 18, 20-22, 34, 35,
37, 38
Yorktown (Tasmania), 272
Yoshiaki, 23, 30
Yoshimitsu, 23
Yoshimochi, shogun, 23
Yoshimori, 23
Yoshimuue, 41
Yoshinaka, 18
Yoshiniri, 23
Yoshinobu, 44
Yoshitoki, 21
Yoshitsune, 18, 20
Yoshu, 35, 36
Yu, 78
Yu Ite, 214
Yukio, 116
Yu waug, 71
Yii, 59, 62, 70, 78
Yii chao, 62
Yii wang, 64
Yii wen chio, 89
Yii wen Hu, 90
Yii wen Tai, 89
Yii yii kung, G.'i
Yuan dynasty, 95, 96
Yuan King, 179
Yuan Shan chieu, 89
Yuan Ti, 79, 80, 84, 88
Yudhisthira. 370
Yue (eh), 71, 74, 77
Yue chi, 196
Yue Tshi (Yueh Ti), 79, 141, 144-
146, 148, 151-153, 158, 169, 407
Yukinaja. See KONISIII
Yumen, 211
Yumen Pass, 151, 153
Yung, 59
Yung cheng. See CHI TSUNG
642
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
f/n
dex
Yung lo (Tai Tsung), 23
Yunnan, 58, 60, 101, 106, 107, 110,
177, 515, 516, 529, 533, 534
Yuuus Khoja of Tashkent, 197
Yusnf Beg, 183
Yusuf of Kashmir, 433
Yusnfsai, 433
ZAOAN ARAI-TAN, 190, 193
Zagatai. See JAGATAI
Zaitun, 57, 100
Zambesi, 611, 613
Zamoriu of Calicut, 450
Zan/ibar, 556, 599, 607, 611
Zarathurstra. See ZOROASTRIAN-
ISM
Zayton. See ZAITCK
Zehir ed-din Mohammed Babur II,
186, 187,429-440
Zeidites, 575
Zemark. SeeZiMAKK
Zend, 361, 362
Zimark, 159
Zimmerman, Alfred, 2VJ, 268, 278
Zinstan, pope of, 98
Zipangu, 606
Zoroastrianism, 165, 167, 169, 187,
351
Zulfikar, 442, 444
Printed by BALLANTVNE, HANSON Gr> Co.
London 6° Kdmburgh
00
3
co
•-d H
0) O
-."0 ^
S3 O
•H -P
:tf H
O
-p" '
(D
H
CO
University of Toronto
Library
DO NOT
REMOVE
THE
CARD
FROM
THIS
POCKET
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11